Back to home page Back to other stories   GLORIA   Hi, I'm Gloria, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm going to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now. Long before I ever started drinking, I felt I never fit in anywhere. I came from an alcoholic home, my parents are alcoholic. I was too ashamed to have my friends to the house because of the craziness and chaos. I was the oldest of five siblings and very responsible for a little girl. I took care of the house, the kids, and mom and dad. When I was with my peers, I didn't know how to be like them. I was way too "grown up." It was probably one of the reasons I always palled around with older kids. Even when I was thirteen, I hung around with sixteen and seventeen year olds. I never really palled around with peers.   The first drink I took I was about twelve or thirteen. I was with others at a friend's house. They had experienced drinking. Once in awhile they drank and got high and silly. I had never touched it. I was afraid of what I had seen it do to my father and mother. I was afraid of the violence and alcohol itself. I wanted to fit in with them. I drank. It didn't affect me. I pretended. I had to be like them. This happened a few more times. One time I took a little bit more. It worked. It gave me a little bit of a buzz. Magically, I felt as good as the rest of the world, pretty and smart, and I belonged. From thirteen to sixteen, I drank periodically. I would get a little bit buzzed. I was not a falling down drunk.   At sixteen, I was on a bowling league. Most of the people around me drank. They were older, drinking age. I was served alcohol at the bowling alley. Most of my high school friends bowled too. They met and dated guys there. I was too shy to date. I didn't feel pretty or good enough. A bowling banquet was planned. I was nervous about going because I wasn't very good in social situations. Whenever there was a big affair, I just wanted to sit on the corner. I didn't want to be noticed. I wanted to sit and hide. My friends encouraged me to go. It was to be wonderful time. You got a new formal dress. We were going to get our bowling trophies. We were going to dance and do all kinds of things that in my heart I wanted so badly to do. I was so afraid. It was suggested to me by my best friend that I spend the night at her house. This way I could have a couple of drinks and I wouldn't be found out by my parents. I wouldn't come home with alcohol on my breath. That was the answer, a magic solution. I knew then that I could do it. I could relax.   I went to the bowling banquet and tasted every drink under the sun. Everybody was drinking. I loved the magic it did for me. I felt like a queen, a princess, and Cinderella that night. I felt like a "Ginger Rogers," and I could dance. I could flirt with anyone and they reciprocated. I felt as if they though Gloria is really something, funny, pretty, and a dancer. I was a whole person that night.   This was the beginning of my alcoholic drinking. I stuck with people who were heavy drinkers. When I was eighteen my father caught on to my drinking. He didn't like my way of life. He told me to move out and I did. There was no stopping me after that. It was my license to drink. I moved in with a girlfriend. We always had liquor in the house. I would fall asleep with a bottle in my hand. Every weekend we would do the bar scene. I would meet creep after creep. I thought I had lost my loneliness but as my drinking continued my loneliness got deeper. Eventually, I moved back into my parent's house. I didn't like the loneliness, my roommate, or the lifestyle. I knew something wasn't right.   My father tried to control my drinking. He tried to warn me. He was concerned about me, and he had every right to be. Little did I know then, that dad knew what he was talking about. So, I lived with mom and dad for awhile and I worked. I met someone at a bar. I wanted desperately to get out of my parent's house again. I didn't want or know how to live alone. All my life I had taken care of other people. It was strange that I didn't know how to take care of Gloria. I was married by the time I was twenty-one.   The marriage lasted for about a year and a half. I did a lot of drinking. I spent a lot of time home alone. My husband wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted a good little susie-homemaker wife and he wanted to be able to be out. He wanted a spotless house. I did all this and took care of Tony. I was a good little girl. I would spend my Friday nights with a couple of six packs and my music and clean house. I thought that this was what life was all about. I couldn't wait for Friday nights. The marriage ended. I kept the apartment. I lived alone.   I didn't want to go back to mom and dad. It was too humiliating. They were never for the marriage. I was still able to work, to function, and to hide my alcoholism. I spent a lot of weekends at bars. I met and slept with a lot of creeps. I looked for intimacy. I was never really interested in the sex, even with my husband. I felt like sex was something that I had to do. Here I was lonely, a young woman of twenty-two years, searching for something. I felt empty, afraid, and as if God didn't love me. Why didn't I have something of my dreams, someone in my life, and a man who would love me? I wanted to love a man, have a family, and an organized and peaceful life. I stayed awake night after night drinking, the house lit up with candles. It was like a morgue. I told God how much I hated him and how lonely I was. Why was I alive? I felt so miserable. I'd think I didn't need anyone. I felt people were here to hurt me. No one would ever hurt me again! I'd manage on my own. Fuck everyone, the world, and God! I kept that attitude for a long time.   I met another creep in a bar. I went out with him for six to nine months, and I became pregnant. He didn't love me. I guess I thought in my sick sordid mind that I loved him. He wanted me to give up the baby, and I wouldn't. Having a baby was one of my dreams. I was twenty-six years old and I loved children. I wanted a baby. I needed a reason to live, someone to love me, and someone to live for. At least now I would have a child, devoted to me and that wouldn't leave me.   I had my first daughter, Beth. I love her dearly. I've never regretted it. I drank throughout my pregnancy, out of ignorance and out of being an alcoholic. I never told my "gyne" that I was drinking. I'm fortunate there's nothing wrong with Beth. I lived with her father for awhile. He was as sick as I. At the same time I was seeing a married man from work. This magic made me feel good inside. Gloria felt pretty and smart again. We went out after work and drank together. I thought I was madly in love and that he would leave his wife. I felt I'd be okay if Beth's father were out of my life and work paid more money. I wouldn't have to drink. I believed all this to be true.   My drinking progressed and got to be very bad. I would have the shakes at work. I'd run out at lunch time and get something to drink. I was afraid for my sanity and my daughter. I didn't work one day because I had the shakes too badly. I drove to my father's house and told dad that I thought I was an alcoholic and that I needed help. My dad told that he couldn't tell me whether or not I was an alcoholic. He said he would take me to an AA meeting, and if I decided then that I was an alcoholic and wanted help, that he would help me get into a treatment center. That is what happened.   I went to the meeting. I don't remember much of what went on in the meeting but I remember crying. I went into a hospital program. Beth was about a year and a half then. I was still in some denial. I thought that if my situation were different, I wouldn't have to do drink. I didn't know if I was really an alcoholic. In the hospital it was easy to say I was an alcoholic. The other people were saying that they were alcoholics. I fit in by saying it.   After the hospital, I went on antabuse. I took it for three months. I knew I couldn't drink within ten days of taking it or I would get deathly sick. Unconsciously, I planned to drink. I stopped taking the antabuse. I was out with the married man and on the tenth day I took a sip of a margarita. Well, I could drink, boy could I drink. I don't know how many pitchers of margaritas we drank. My drinking progressed. It got worse. My parents watched Beth for me so that I could work. I still lived with Beth's father. I moved between my mom and dad's house and his. I tried living with my aunt. I lived like a gypsy and so did Beth.   Then, I had an opportunity. I had a very good friend, Andy, a sometimes drinking buddy. He really cared about me. We would see each other at family parties as he was also a shirt tail in-law. We would date, but it was platonic. I never slept with him. Andy was sweet and honest. My drinking was so bad that I couldn't work anymore. I applied for welfare. I left Beth's father. One night Andy told me that he had a chance to move to Atlanta, a short term transfer. I had nothing going with my life. With alcoholic courage, I said I would go with him. The next day I thought I was crazy. Being a co-dependent, I couldn't let Andy down.   Beth and I moved to Atlanta with Andy. Driving south I drank but Andy didn't. When we arrived, we lived in a Holiday Inn. I would drink all day until Andy got home from work. I would try to get him to drink with me, but he would decline. Andy could drink but was not an alcoholic. My drinking got worse. I didn't know anyone and was home all the time. I was miserable. We finally got an apartment. I hated the apartment, Atlanta, and the people. I didn't like the newspaper, television shows, or anything. After three months, my mom and dad came to visit. One night out on the front porch with my mother, I began having DTs. I felt I was in a twilight zone. I told mom that she was not really my mother. Mom freaked out. I told her that my mother couldn't have hurt me the way that she had. I believed that she was a clone of my mother. She was scared. She didn't know what to do. My dad told her to let me sleep it off. I had terrible thoughts. I thought Andy wanted to sleep with my mother. It was an awful night. Finally, I passed out. The next day I woke, hungover. I remembered the night before. I didn't know what I was capable of doing. I realized the insanity of drinking. Could I hurt someone, my mother, myself, or Beth? I became frightened of losing my mind or my child. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live.   I decided to give recovery one more try. It had been a year since I had been in treatment. I quit drinking, and, after three weeks dry, I was going crazy. I called an AA club and asked if anyone could take me to an AA meeting. I was told no one from my area went to that group and that I would have to find my own way. I was pissed off. This was not the way I understood AA. This bitch should take me to a meeting right now. I thought, fuck you then, I'm getting drunk. I didn't. I asked Andy to go to an open meeting with me and he did. I went to meetings there for a year.   I never spoke to anyone. I was too afraid and untrusting to speak. I didn't trust anyone. I felt that although everyone understood me because we were alcoholics, that they wouldn't understand me because I was also crazy. I felt that if I opened my mouth and told them the way I felt, that they would kick me out. I would go home and process things with Andy. He was my best friend. I shared only with him. Finally I began to share with Gail, a woman who lived in the apartment complex. After about a year, I got into a woman's therapy group. My horizons began to expand. I started speaking and sharing at meetings. I started reading the Big Book. I really got into AA.   I'm a good mother now. I have healthy relationships. I married Andy, and it was the best thing I ever did. God knew what he was doing. For the first time in my life, I knew what healthy love was, Love between a man and a woman and children. I have goals today. I'm going to school. In the past, during my drinking, I had made several attempts to go to school and could never finish a course. I couldn't finish anything. Today, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels wonderful. I'm learning a lot about Gloria. It hurts, and it feels wonderful. I'm no longer afraid of God as I was for so many years. I know that God loves me, and I can turn to God. My life is changed.   It took alcoholism to get me into life. Today, I am grateful to be a recovering alcoholic. I have wonderful people in my life. I have the steps of the AA program working in my life. AA gave me that spark of hope for life. Life is worth living. Thanks, I hope my story can help someone.