Why I Got Sober.

Preface: These are my experiences, strengths and hope, they do not reflect every person who identifies as "sober" or someone in "recovery", this is just my story.

"I'm sober now" is probably one of the phrases old friends of mine would never fathomed me saying. I'm among those who also find it hard to believe. At 16 when I had my first drink of alcohol, there was no turning back. Never before had I consumed something that made me feel so at home in my own skin. Alcohol enhanced my personality, made me more outgoing, talkative and confident. It worked for me in this way for a long time, until it didn't. Through many trials, I was able to find a place I was meant to be, the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, where I could become myself and start piecing together my own road to happy destiny. I'm Erin and I'm an alcoholic, my sobriety date is 8/27/2011. These are my stories.

What It Was Like

I don't remember if I ever had the conscious thought that I was going to start drinking. I had grown up with alcohol playing a major role in my life. It was at all family functions, it was how the Briggs family had fun, it was the instigator of arguments, it was the cause of much public humiliation, but mainly, it was just always there. Around the age of 8, all of that stopped, my mother had had enough of my dad's alcoholic drinking. They divorced, sending my brother and I to new schools and neighborhoods, and sending my father to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Though our lives changed drastically, it was ultimately for the best, we gained back a loving father and a mother that wasn't under so much stress.

It was around this age that I started becoming aware that I felt "different" (I use this as a relative term, I now know that everyone feels different or strange growing up, that I wasn't unique in this). By different, I mean that I never felt like I fit in. I always was striving to be something better than what I was, nothing that I had was ever good enough. I never had the right clothing, the right friends, the cool parents, the best house, enough money. I was constantly comparing my insides to everyone else's outside. Through elementary and middle school, I always felt like I was on the fringe of "popularity" because, of course that was the most important thing to me. I spent a lot of years feeling the residual effects of being an alcoholic's daughter. I was shy in a lot of situations because I was used to making myself as small and invisible as possible when my dad would be on one in public. When you add all these insecurities up, I felt unconfident, awkward and alone. Once I reached high school, I started to distance myself from a lot of the people in my class. The upperclassmen held an appeal that I lusted after; the cars, the maturity, the "coolness factor". That's how alcohol entered into my life.

I vividly remember being 16, in my drill team uniform, after a football game at an upperclassmen party. It was just like all the high school movies you see. I was offered an Icehouse beer and from the minute that lager hit my mouth, it was on. All of those insecurities, not feeling good enough, pretty enough, confident enough, went right out the window, I was in my element. I could talk to anyone, say anything, act the ways I truly wanted to act and most of all have fun! I call this "Phase One" of my drinking, the fun phase.

Life at that point became finding the next party, finding the next drink. There was some school stuff sandwiched in the middle of my party hopping behavior. I remember weekends became meeting in the Safeway parking lot and "party training" to remote locations all around Thurston County trying to find the next best thing. Most of my friends at this point were seniors, some of them weren't the best influences. On late start mornings, I could be found playing poker and drinking beer with the guys. I would bring Nalgene bottles filled with vodka and juice to school. I would sometimes steal alcohol from my mom and drink it at night while IM'ing with friends online. Alcohol became what I did, all entertainment was derived from that.

About eight months into my drinking life, I got my first DUI. Up to this point, my drinking had some minor consequences. I got in trouble for some all nighters, got confronted about stealing booze and had some minor social embarrassment when I wet myself at a party. This was my first ever encounter with the law. It Memorial Day weekend in Seattle and I was pulled over for going 115 mph on the I-90 bridge. It's a miracle that I didn't harm myself or anyone else. I had a very embarrassing two hour ride home at three in the morning with a father that was angered into silence. I remember the next morning when my father was finally moved to words, he didn't yell, he didn't scream, he talked very calmly and real to me. We had a lengthy discussion about what I should expect from the courts, getting a lawyer and how we were going to get my car out of impound. He never told me that I was a failure or a disappointment, that he just expected better. I think I was grounded for a few weeks, and with the courts, I had to do 100 hours community service, get an alcohol evaluation, sit in on a victims panel and pay some fines. Since I was a minor and this was my first offense, my DUI was pled down to a Reckless Driving ticket. This was the first time in my life where I swore off alcohol.

That lasted two months.

I think at this point, I believed I was more unlucky for getting caught than anything else. The biggest consequence I had to suffer was losing the opportunity to study abroad. I had been in the process of getting my ducks in a row to do a half year of high school in Australia and after my DUI, my parents rightfully told me I was too immature to handle such a big responsibility.

After this, I knew I had to start focusing on my future. I knew I wanted to go to college, I knew I wanted to get a job, be a productive member of society, have my own money, and once I got my license back, I was able to do all of this. I started taking running start classes at the community college, worked three jobs my senior year, took the SATs and started applying for colleges.

That's not to say though that I started thinking about alcohol any less. When I was applying for colleges, I had three main requirements: 1. They have a good football team (because I wanted to drink at the tailgates) 2. They have a greek life (because I wanted to be a sorority girl and go to all the frat parties) and 3. It be a party school (self explanatory). What I came up with: UNLV, University of Oregon, University of South Carolina and my number one choice Auburn. I got into all of them and basically on a whim, I chose Oregon. It met all of my requirements and it was close enough to Olympia that I could pop home when I was getting homesick.

At this point, I was feeling really good about my future. I started school in the fall and rushed right away, joining my sisters in Kappa Kappa Gamma. I felt proud of where I was at, I started to feel like I belonged somewhere and that I had worked hard for something in my life. Everything was so new, no one in my family had gone to college before, the only thing that prepared me at all for college was the book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons" by Tom Wolfe.

On bid night at Kappa Kappa Gamma, I thought I had found people just like me. We sang songs about drinking beer, getting drunk and being the best sorority around. I was home.

"Drink beer, drink beer, oh come drink a beer with me, 
I don't give a damn about any ol'e man that won't drink a beer with me.

So grab that old silver goblet with the Kappa key on it
And we'll all have another keg of beer, KEG OF BEER!

For it's not for knowledge that we've come to college
But to raise hell while we're, get laid while we're, get drunk while we're here, DRINK BEER!"

So you can understand my confusion two years later when I was being asked to turn in my pin. My status as a sorority girl, someone "special", a chosen one, was being revoked. I then chalked it up to jealous sisters who didn't approve of my lifestyle and who wanted me out of the house. When I look back now, I see that I had brought this decision upon myself by being hauled into our standards board time and time again, all of my black marks and demerits came from being a drunk fool. I yelled at sorority girls in others houses while blacked out, I showed up at functions wasted to "rescue" other sisters from being at a non-drinking location, I blacked out when I was supposed to be "chaperoning" an underclassmen's weekend, I drunkenly raced golf carts around the Eugene Country Club during our Kappa Klassic Philanthropy Golf Tournament, on and on and on. This is a resentment I harbored for many years, being stripped of my title and my sisters. It took me getting sober to see my part in this situation, that my alcoholic ways were largely responsible for my life changes.

Enter "Phase Two" of my drinking, the lonely phase.

I was now a junior in college, had just turned 21, moved into a depressing apartment of my own, was living by myself for the first time in my life and my world had just been rocked by being robbed of what I thought was the only thing that made me special. I didn't know how to cope with any of the changes in my life, all of the friends I had made in college were in the Greek System, my superiority complex had kept me from meeting anyone that was non-greek, or a "GDI" (God Damn Independent) as we called them. My drinking through the past two years had definitely caused me to burn some bridges, I treated a lot of people unfairly and even made enemies of some. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it describes me perfectly: "The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted."

My only coping mechanism for all of these changes was to drink. I was able to scrape together a rag-tag group of people I called "friends" which now I realize were simply drinking buddies. I spent my days in class (if not nursing a hangover) and I spent most nights of the week going to the campus bars or at house parties, basically drinking my way through the loneliness. Looking back now, I figure I was out  about 5 or 6 nights of the week. I spent over $2,000 in one term alone at the bars, I even had a poster of the nightly drink schedule posted on my wall from Taylor's, my regular haunt. In my mind it was like Cheers, in reality, I was the girl that everyone would walk in the door and say (in a mystified voice), "You're always here!" At the time I thought it was a compliment. I also couldn't figure out why, if I was always out, I still felt so alone. I now know it's because I suffered from a spiritual malady, or simply, a hole in my soul. 

It took me until spring term of junior year to find a group of friends that would really take me in and embrace me. I had been floating from one set of drinking buddies to the next, and I finally found a solid group of guys that shared similar interests; drinking, sports, and drinking sports. I also started dating one of the guys in this group because I thought that adding someone else to my life would cure my self doubt, depression and loneliness. For a while it did. This guy and I were from the same home town, had a lot of things in common, but what I liked most about him was his passion for life. That was a passion that I had wanted to get back. We had some truly great times together, he and I and his friends. Those guys are some of the people who got me through the rest of my years at Oregon. 

Through all of my drinking and partying, I was somehow able to get a Bachelors of Science with a degree in Political Science. I graduated on time, walked with my class, and had a big party. At that time, my drinking levels had evened out at about three or four days a week, which resulted in me having graduation photos that looked like this:

I had never gained the freshman 15, but I got the senior 25 I think. For me looking back now, I'm really sickened that this wonderful event in my life is commemorated by me looking truly awful (my pride is barely allowing for this photo to even be on here). After graduation, I found a job working at Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Eugene thanks to the help of my boyfriend's cousin who was high up in the company. I decided to stay in Eugene another year to wait for my boyfriend, Casey, who was a year behind me in school. My drinking slowed considerably while Casey's remained a constant. This is when our relationship started to get rocky. 

When I started working at Enterprise, I gained a bunch of new friends. Casey didn't really want any part in that since he had his college buddies. I started doing happy hours with my co-workers and Casey delved deeper into his fraternity going-ons. Near the end of his senior year he got the opportunity to start working with his brother and sister on the startup they were working on in Portland, OR. At this point Casey attempted to break up with me. Hindsight makes me think I should have just let him. I was worried though that if he were to leave me, I would have no way out of Eugene. I was working a dead end job that I didn't like and I'm very scared of change. I had been planning on moving up to Portland with him, and I didn't know if I would be able to make that leap alone. We worked it out, I let him know that I would stand by him while he did this business that was going to take up the majority of his life, that I wasn't going to let it effect our relationship, that I would be 100% supportive. 

We moved to Portland in July of 2010. We rented our first place together in a district of Portland called the Pearl and we got a dog, Rudy. For a couple of months, everything was perfect. We were getting to explore a new city, his family and mine were closer, we had a lot of friends in the area and we were making a ton of new friends with our respective work places. 

An aside about Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Somehow that company manages to attract a lot of newly graduated college students (one statistic I heard is that they hire the most of any company in the nation). For those who have not worked at the big green machine, I'll tell you this: It's nothing but young, attractive, active people that they hire. One of the things they want to see on your resume is that you have either sports experience, greek life, or that you were highly active in other clubs in college. What this looked like at my branch (when I moved, I got placed at the state's largest branch in Beaverton, OR) was about 12 young (22-27) college graduates who all knew how to drink. They became my family, my friends, my drinking partners and everything in between. We did a weekly happy hour, and there were many other occasions when we all would just go out to places like Buffalo Wild Wings and get rowdy. Another noteworthy thing about Enterprise is that it's a soul sucking company. You are expected to work 60 hour weeks making barely above minimum wage while you deal with horrible customers, wash cars in heels and skirts and sell useless products in order to promote yourself. I'm not saying I didn't learn anything here or I'm not grateful for the opportunity and experience, but it helped to further my negative mindset. 

After a few months of Casey working 80 hour weeks, I began getting lonely. That supportiveness I had promised to have was waining and I was getting closer than ever with my co-workers. My drinking was increasing out of boredom and I was coming home less often right after work. Enter the third phase of my drinking: The destructive phase.

My relationship was falling apart and I knew it. Casey was drinking a lot after work, I was drinking a lot after work, and never together. Our lives were going in two separate directions but at this point we were both desperately trying to hold on out of fear of the unknown. It's hard for me still, to even make heads or tails of this time of my life. I was back to drinking every other day, coming into work severely hung over, fighting with Casey, drinking on the job at lunch sometimes, skipping work due to hangovers, calling in "sick" all the time and basically just hating my life. I was living one drink to the next to get some relief from my rapidly spiraling life. I had reached the point where when I started drinking, I no longer cared how drunk I got. I had before made an attempt to limit my drinking and say things in my head like "I'm only going to have two drinks tonight", which I didn't really stick to in the first place, but now I made no such promises to myself. 

Casey and I were in a sick sad cycle of making promises to each other like, "I'll be home at 7:00" only for one of us to show up at 11:00. There were many nights Casey didn't come home, he would get too drunk and stay at his brother's or elsewhere. I think we both cared too much and too little all at the same time if that makes any sense. We finally called it quits in July of 2011, after three years of dating. I was the one to move out, leaving our house and our dog, basically everything I had known since moving to Portland. I packed my life's belongings in my car and moved in temporarily with my good friend Hannah. My life was quickly falling apart.

What Happened

Upon moving in with Hannah and ending my relationship with Casey, I thought I would be in a much better headspace. Wrong again. My drinking continued at the same amazing levels it had before, one memorable incident included me going to a friends wedding and drinking absorbent amounts, coming home with only one shoe of my own and another shoe that was completely different (and not mine). The drive home from the wedding was from Klamath Falls, OR and instead of dealing with my hangover, I decided I should drink through it. I think I consumed at least six Bud-light tall boys, fully knowing I had to get up and go to work the next day and try to function like a human being. I was going on a few dates that would just end up with me completely drunk or feeling really lonely, it was miserable.

The one good thing that came out of this time period was that I got reconnected with my old friend and boyfriend Ryan. He was a guy that I have always loved. From the day we met in high school through tumultuous times in our drinking lives, to now, in my head I had always labeled him as my "what if" guy, and by some kind of Devine intervention, I got his number again. At this point, he was almost a year sober. This was a guy that I used to THROW DOWN with. We would get crazy drunk and he was exactly like me, once he started he could never stop. I was amazed a guy like that could get sober and STAY sober.

Ryan invited me down to Astoria to spend the weekend with him to catch up and reconnect, I jumped on the opportunity. Once I got down there, it was like old times again. We spent the whole first night reliving our shared past and what had happened in our lives since we last talked, it was amazing. The next day I remember we went to lunch and we started talking about his sobriety. I remember sharing that I had all of these things on my bucket list that would stop me from getting sober right away, like drinking a beer in an Irish Pub or wine tasting through Tuscany. He shared about some of the reservations he had had in his life before getting sober, like drinking on his wedding day. He told me these reservations were just his disease convincing him to stay drunk and he had finally come to realize special occasions or bucket lists don't need to include alcohol, with alcohol these things probably wouldn't turn out the way he had imagined them anyway.

While I was there, he had to open a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I decided to tag along. It was the first meeting I had been to in a many number of years. A monumental mental shift happened to me during this meeting. A man named Carlos was sharing about his experience and he said something that to this day still moves me. He said that he had more years behind him drunk, than good, sober years ahead of him. This statement might not seem like much, but to me at that moment, it was everything. I started looking at my life, what it had become and where I was going and I wasn't happy. It was with this one statement that I knew these people understood me and all of the feelings I had been having up to this point. I saw that my drinking had caused chaos and destruction to a level I never thought possible. At this moment, I knew I was just like these people, that I had a disease, the disease of alcoholism.

For many alcoholics, the phrase "knowledge is power" is useless, and I was no exception to this rule. Knowing that I was an alcoholic didn't stop me from drinking though I knew I needed to. I knew that I most likely couldn't stop drinking on my own, alcohol was so entrenched in my life that I couldn't make that separation. The thought of telling my boss Steve that I needed to go to treatment was outrageous and scary and something I would never do. Within a weeks span of hearing Carlos's share at the meeting and having the realization I was an alcoholic, I didn't have to have that conversation with Steve, my actions and my higher power took care of that for me.

On Friday, August 26th, my night started out like any other. Happy hour after work with the co-workers. I had told myself (because I had gone out really hard the night before) that I wasn't even going to drink that much. I had started the day actually saying I wasn't even going to go out at all, but my desire to drink got the best of me. I had started with drinking beers and before I knew it, I was taking jello shots, playing beer pong and consuming massive amounts of alcohol. Towards the end of the night, I was sloppy drunk, coming in and out of a blackout. Looking back, I can only see snapshots of that night.

I have a memory of being dropped off at my car by a co-worker asking me if I was okay to drive and if I just wanted to get a ride home with her. I saw that she was driving and that she had been drinking just as much as I had, so I said no, that I could handle it, I had done this many times before. This was different though, I was REALLY REALLY drunk, and I couldn't remember the way back to Hannah's house though I'd been driving it every day for a month now. The last thing I remember was turning on to Highway 217. The next thing I remember is being pulled over. Here's what happened in between:
In my blackout, I hit another car on the freeway. I rear-ended his back left bumper, sending him into a guardrail on the side of the freeway. I had either fallen asleep at the wheel or had been deep in a blackout, because I have no memory of any accident. I kept driving, not realizing my car was totaled. Somehow it was still running. I apparently was able to almost make it back to Hannah's house until a cop saw my mangled car and pulled me over.

All I can remember is looking in my rearview mirror and seeing the flashing lights. In an instant, my mind sobered up, but my body did not. As if the cop couldn't tell I was drunk by my smell and the condition of my car, I had to do a field sobriety test, which I had told him from the beginning I was going to absolutely fail. Before I was put in the police car, I managed to send a message to Ryan that said "I think I'm in trouble." For the second time in my life, my drinking landed me in handcuffs. I was taken to the Washington County Jail in Hillsboro, OR where I was booked on a laundry list of charges. I remember my biggest concern was telling Steve I wasn't going to be able to make it in to work that morning. This jail experience wasn't like the first I had when I was 16 where the cop had let me sit in the waiting room for my dad to come pick me up. I was an adult now, and I got finger printed, booked and locked in a cell in a jail of over 200 women. I have never experienced anything more degrading, shameful, humiliating and terrifying in my whole life.

To this day, I am convinced I took my first step in Alcoholics Anonymous while I sat in that jail cell. Step one says, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable". I remember laying on a bed with a thin plastic mattress in a 8x8 cell, looking up at the concrete brick walls thinking that alcohol had gotten me here to this place. I cursed alcohol and everything it had done to me. Ryan always says that there's a point in an alcoholics life where drinking is costing you more than it gives back. I had reached this point. Alcohol didn't always get me in trouble, but when I was in trouble, alcohol was always involved. Something that I couldn't help thinking was "I have a college degree, a career, my own car, money to do whatever I want, and I end up here." I was in a very dark place.

What was happening behind the scenes: My friends and family were springing into action. They knew I was there, they had found out how much my bail was and they were working on posting it. The trouble with Oregon is that they don't take bonds, so my friends were having to come up with $2000 cash, all at once (had I known that, I would have been able to bail myself out, but no one at the jail had told me).

I didn't make a phone call until late Saturday afternoon, about 12 hours after being booked. I was too hung over and shame ridden to pick up the phone. When I finally did, my only call was to Ryan. He was so happy to hear from me and he did so much to calm my fears, I will be forever grateful to him for that. He told me what was going on, what I needed to do and that I just needed to hold on a little bit longer, there was a plan. The only thing I remember of the conversations was Ryan asking me, "Will you go to treatment", my only response was "Yes".

My friend Hannah and another co-worker Rachel bailed me out around 8:00 Sunday night. It was the happiest moment I'd had in my life, "Free at last" came to mind. I went back to Hannah's to pack whatever belongings I had there before Ryan came to pick me up to take me to treatment. I knew it was the right decision. On August 30th, 2011, I checked myself into The Astoria Pointe where I spent the next 60 days in inpatient treatment.

What It's Like Now

At nearly two years sober, I can say that what I went through was the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life to this point. What I owe to the Astoria Pointe and Rosebriar can never be repaid. They taught me how to live life on life's terms, sober. I met women in there I plan to keep in my life forever. I learned a new way of living which doesn't include alcohol to help me make it through. What I likened my life to before I came to treatment was the carrot dangling before the horse, the things I wanted in life being the carrot, me being the horse, and all of those things just that much out of reach.

What I thought of treatment before actually going there myself was that it was for celebrities and people who "had a problem". What I've realized afterwards is that it's for anyone who is trying to create a better life for themselves who wish to no longer be chemically dependent. It's not easy getting sober or staying sober for that matter. I'd love to say that the 20+ women I was in the Rosebriar with are all sober today. That's not so. I have a handful of women (three to be exact) that I know are living a sober lifestyle and still going to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. A few have died that I knew. That's the nature of this disease and why it's so deadly serious to me.

I'd also like to say that I have done everything perfectly in my sobriety. That I got a sponsor right away, that I did 90 meetings in 90 days, that I started working the steps and working with others. But old habits die hard. I still like to think I can do everything Erin's way, but I know that not to be true. I hit about one meeting a week, I didn't get a sponsor until my 18th month of sobriety, and I have just started working the steps. Thank God I believe it's progress, not perfection.

I am one of those "lucky one's" that didn't have to deal too much with cravings. Once I got into treatment, all desire to drink died. I don't know if that's because of the low bottom I found myself at or if I've mentally convinced myself it's poison, but all I know is that I don't miss the drink. I can get envious sometimes when I see pictures of friends who are out on the town looking glamourous with their girlfriends, because I know that probably won't be me again. But then I play that tape out, the one in my head where I say "I miss that", and I find that I never had that before and I'm only longing for something I never had.

Sobriety has been good to me. I spent my 25th birthday in treatment, I call it my quarter life crisis, but I spent my birthday in a happier way with more people I love than I had in all birthday's previous.

My first sober birthday.

But sobriety for me hasn't come with out a cost. I left my job at Enterprise, I hadn't been happy there, well, ever. I lost my license for 5 years. I totaled my car. And worst of all, I injured someone else while doing it. I am now on probation for 3 years, I had to do 30 days in a work release-jail setting (scary as shit), make amends to the person I hit, face-to-face, and do 80 hours of community service, not to mention thousands paid in fines and lawyer fees. I also carry two felonies on my record. Did I ever look at my life and say, "This is where I think I'm going to end up"? No. But I am happy that I have finally gotten here and that it wasn't any worse.

I remember one day in treatment sitting through a class titled "Spirituality" which was taught by "Spiritual Bob". I remember thinking that AA was some God worshiping cult before I got sober, there were times in my past when my dad told me he was praying for me, and that freaked me out. What I learned in that class though, is that having spirituality means you believe that there is a higher power of your own creation, working for you in your life and that "G.O.D." is defined as "Good Orderly Direction". Spiritual Bob described a "higher power" as a force that is working for you when you are trying your best to kill yourself. I thought about all of the times I had drove drunk, placed my life in the hands of others who were in the same condition and worse. This is when I stopped struggling with the idea of a higher power and prayer in my life. I'm not a religious person, but I do have belief that there is something guiding my life when I can't. I pray daily "Thy will be done", and try to let go of my will. I know now that I can't do this on my own, previous attempts to lead my life the way I wanted led me to jails and institutions, the last stop being death.

All of the previous insecurities I mentioned didn't cease to exist the moment I got sober. If anything, they increased. Who gets sober at the age of 24? What fun is there to have ever again? Who can't handle their liquor? And on and on. But today, I can face these thoughts, insecurities and doubts head on and tackle them logically, with a sponsor, to try to solve them as opposed to drowning them out with booze. And I've had more fun in sobriety than I ever did while drinking. 

I realize now that drinking for me was but a symptom of a greater spiritual malady that it's going to take time and hard work to fix. Thankfully though, I have people around me today who love me when I can't love myself. I'm in a relationship with the most loving and supportive man I know, who was there for me and continues to be there for me when I'm at my lowest. He loves and supports me through all of the good, the bad and the effing crazy that goes through my newly sober head. I have a job now that allows me to spend all day every day with my friends and talk about the thing that means the most to me: Recovery. All of these things wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the loving family and friends I have in my life, and if I didn't know when enough was enough. Every day I thank my higher power for doing for me what I could not do for myself- ask for help in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

One of the most poignant and hopeful passages I have read from the Big Book says this, "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. The feeling of useless-ness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. "

Why did I decide to write this, one might ask. Well, if you're anything like me, you would think a drunk and an addict are the people you see on the streets, living out of a cardboard box, drinking out of a paper bag. What I have come to learn is that the disease I have does not discriminate based on color, education, social status, gender, sexuality, race or religion, and if I can help just one person come to see they are not alone, then I have achieved something. My story isn't unique. I'm not the first college graduating sorority girl who has found themselves staring at the bottom of a bottle wondering why she's all alone with misery as her only company. But I found a place where I can start healing and recovering, and it's my responsibility to help those who are still suffering. One of the greatest things I heard around AA is, "Speak up, what you say might save a life."