Good, Bad, or Indifferent July 2008
Welcome
Young & Sober is a collection of Grapevine stories about the joys and challenges of recovering early in life, and about recognizing alcoholism after a drinking history that in some cases has only lasted a few years. Are the stories of those who came to AA in their teens, 20s and 30s different from those who got sober later in life? No … and yes. “Being young, we recover fast physically,” writes the author of “Young Peoples’ Groups.” “But our insides still boil like mad … the young person … has little or no productive past, and organizing a life terrorizes him.”
Chapters One and Two are a collection of qualifications—the places drinking took young alcoholics and examples of how they earned their seat at the table. Chapters Three through Five explore relationships with family members who have long been part of AA, with old-timers who helped show them the ropes, and finally, with people their own age.
Chapters Six and Seven talk about further coming to grips with alcoholism and recovery from it. Several writers did not fully accept their disease until some event finally got their attention. Some describe how getting involved in service helped them feel more a part of things, while others write about how working the Steps showed them a way out of their misery.
“What we are like now” is covered in Chapters Eight and Nine, with topics such as acceptance, growing up, growing older, and experiencing joy and pain in sobriety. “Having the opportunity to watch this program work in young peoples’ lives the way that it worked in mine is one of the greatest joys of my sobriety,” says the author of “Fountain of Youth.” Written by alcoholics of all lengths of sobriety, Young & Sober is about coming into AA at an early age, learning to have sober relationships, doing the Steps and getting service commitments—and most of all, it’s about learning how to live life joyously.
CHAPTER ONE
What It Was Like, What Happened
Their drinking careers weren’t long—but long enough
What brings an alcoholic through the doors of an AA meeting? What brings a young person, perhaps still working his or her way through high school, into the basement of a church, into a meeting room where the other members there are often older, married with children, established in a career, engaged in community activities?
“No way was I going to spend all my time with those old fogies. They were all over twenty-five!” one member recounts in “Nothing Left to Lose.” But after more experimentation, more problems, and several more treatment centers, she returns.
“My options were very obvious: jail, the streets, or death. I was also suffering from liver disease,” the author of the story, “Homeless Bound” says. For him the repercussions of drinking were concrete and physical. For others, the devastation was more emotional and internal. “I couldn’t bear to look in the mirror,” writes the author of “Teen Nightmare.”
These and the other AAs in this Chapter, as well as throughout this book, have drinking histories that anyone can identify with. “I never went anywhere without a mug full of whiskey and cola. All but one of my friends had had enough of my erratic, violent, and rude behavior while drinking. I always drank to get as drunk as I could.”
The age they came into AA or the length of time they spent drinking are, in fact, small details. It is the loneliness, the alienation, the humiliation and sickness that comes from drinking alcoholically that finally brings them in, or finally convinces them to stay. “Alcoholism has no minimum age requirement. I realize that many fellow AA members have lost homes, marriages, and children to alcohol before I acquired any of those things. But I lost enough.”
Young or old, newcomers or old-timers, there is something of all of our stories here.
Noticed
October 2007
I had my first drink when I was twelve years old. I loved it. I loved the way it made me feel, and the way it made me not feel. I grew up yearning for a place to belong, and when I drank, I found it. My first drink allowed me to become someone completely different. It allowed me to have a voice, and believe me, people heard it. It made me feel like I finally was being noticed, and I never looked back.
At first, I drank just on weekends. I looked forward 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