Hi Nate,
Welcome to this forum. As Bob said, we have a few regulars, myself included, who are able to say we are alcoholics. I am Trish, an alcoholic from PA. While I have been in AA for almost 20 years, I am only sober 7 weeks. I had some killer relapses, which praise God did not kill me.
What I wish to share with you is my experience, strength and hope.
I drank and did pot all through high school. I was the last one to a party, and the first to pass out and not remember any of my antics. My partying friends were concerned about my drinking. They suggested I needed help.
At 18, I got married and moved across country to have a baby and start a new life as a Christian wife. I stopped drinking and became out of control behaviorally and emotionally. BUT, I was not drinking. I started drinking again at 24, after my third child, when my marriage was at the bottom of the heap. During that summer, I went from a beer or two a day, to passed out drunk by Labor Day. I knew I needed help, and even called AA, but was terrified, because my husband had no clue about my drinking, and just thought I was out of my mind. I did not have the courage to attend a meeting to learn about myself, or the program of recovery offered there.
I stopped drinking again for a few years, and at age 31, my husband was threatening to divorce me if I did not get psychological help. Again, he had no clue about the alcohol, because my drinking was sportic binges when he traveled on business. So, I got therapy and through a weird twist of events, I certainly did not tell my therapist how much I drank, he caught on to my line of bull and sent me to AA. That was 20 years ago.
My denial was so thick, you could have wrapped nuclear waste in it and been safe around it. I could not grasp the level of honesty necessary to thoroughly work the 12 Steps of AA, and stay sober. I had over 8 years without a drink, but did not change my insane behavior. Relapsed and got sober again to collect over 6 years, but relapsed and have been struggling for the past 19 months since that one.
I have been in outpatient treatment for my alcoholism since October. I have been in therapy since I was 31 years old. I have other diagnoses, which when I am sober and taking my psychotropic meds, I am as sane as a judge. When I go off my meds and drink, I am nuttier than peanut butter.
It has taken me this most recent stint in treatment to realize that my recovery is based on the 12 steps of AA, or I am doomed. I must work those steps. That is how I change my insane thinking, and get God to really be an integral part of every aspect of my life so that I can live a life worthy of Him.
I pray you will see that in my story, I suspected I had a problem before I was your age, and in my early twenties, but made life a whole lot more complicated for myself.
All told, my marriage ended in 2001 with a painful divorce. I am in bankruptcy for charging way beyond my means. I almost lost my professional license in mental health because of my drinking. I was over 120 pounds overweight at one point, and had to have weight loss surgery.
The first step of AA is "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and our lives had become unmanageable." The unmanageability scares the crap out of me anymore. I also learned in my last relapse that I am truly powerless over the alcohol. When I drink, I have no intention of stopping before the bottle is empty. My behavior with or without the drink after the first one is nuts, and it takes my therapist and me months to undo the damage from one night of drinking.
I suggest you get to a few AA meetings. Meet some of the people. Listen to the stories and see if you can relate to the emotions, and the thinking.
Trish
