Back to home page Back to other stories   AMY   Hi, I'm Amy, and I'm an alcoholic and an addict. I first started drinking and using at the age of twelve. I wanted to fit in with the other kids. I had been taken out of private school and put into a public school. I knew no one. It was the easier softer way to fit in quickly. I enjoyed the effects of drinking and drugging. It was wonderful and pleasurable. I felt strong when I felt weak. I felt happy when I felt sad. I felt good when I felt bad. I felt good about myself. I was anything and everything. I wasn't happy about the after affects.   I used in high school and it got very bad. I couldn't stop. I felt that, if I stopped, I would cease to exist. Everything would tumble away and nothing would be left. My parents would tell me, "I know you're using drugs and drinking." I would say to them, "No, no, I wouldn't do that. Other kids do that. I think it is terrible. I just would not do that." A part of me wanted them to know so that I could get help. A part of me did not want them to know because I did not want to stop. It was not pleasurable anymore. I had to use. I had problems at high school. My grades had gone down from average to failure in every subject. I ditched classes. I ditched school. I would steal anything and everything. I was reaching for something. I never quite got it.   I got into trouble at school. My parents had to come for a conference. I was caught with drugs. I only had a little and I handed it over to the staff. My parents said they knew I was doing it. I was angry. I felt that if they knew, they should have done something for me. I guess they couldn't do anything because they didn't want to believe that their kid was an addict. Things changed but not a lot. I continued to lie, and I continued to use and drink. When I was eighteen, I was put into a psychiatric hospital at the suggestion of my high school counselor. I was suicidal. I didn't think I could quit drinking or using. I didn't think anything would be left of me.   I was in the hospital for thirty days. I did not drink or use. I didn't have anything with me. I tried to get things, but I couldn't. I didn't learn a lot from the experience. It wasn't a good one. Their version of tough love just reinforced the way I felt. I already felt I was a bad girl, no good, and mean. I knew I was a loser and that I couldn't do anything right. Tough love doesn't help when you have never had love. When I got out, I went back to drinking and using until I got a job.   I worked with a couple of "older" people. I thought very highly of them. They saw the trouble I was having and reached out to me. For the first time in my life I thought someone cared. They believed that I wasn't a loser and that I would be something someday. One person helped me become willing to take the first step toward being clean and sober. This person showed me that I was hurting not only myself but others. That affected me. I didn't realize that my drug addiction, alcoholism, and behavior affected others. The idea of hurting someone by hurting myself hit me hard. I thought that, if I didn't do something now, I would lose these people who cared about me. I did it for them. I did not want to lose them. The people who reached out to me knew people on the program. I went to AA.   My very first AA meeting was the All Chicago Open. It was incredible. I shook the entire time. It was unbelievable that there were so many alcoholics and addicts. I couldn't believe that I was not alone. There were people there who were black, white, Asian, short, tall, fat, skinny, male and female. They were all like me. They knew how I felt. I wasn't alone. I loved closing with the prayer "Our Father". It seemed like a million people held hands and prayed. It just rocked me. I knew then that I was home. I belonged here. It was a wonderful feeling.   I began going to meetings with a woman to whom my friend had introduced me at the All Chicago Open. It was a real hard because I was only nineteen years old. The majority of the people around the meetings were older, thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty. They would talk about losing their jobs, husbands, houses, spouses, kids, cars, and everything. I hadn't lost anything, but I didn't have anything. These are all "YETs" (You Can Experience it Too) for me. I compared every way that they felt to how I felt. I wasn't relating. I would stay clean and sober, but I would think that I wasn't an alcoholic or addict. I'd think that I was too young. I'd think that because I'm not even twenty-one. It was a real struggle, a constant fight within myself. The people who originally reached out to me, meant so much to me that I stayed in AA. I didn't want to disappoint them and resolved not to hurt them. I didn't want to lose these people. I kept going for them, when it's hard to hold on, I hold on and go for them. I would never hurt them.   When I started relating to what people were saying, I started to accept that there is hope. I'm not a loser. The disease is the problem, and it is not me. It's a part of me and my problems can be worked through. I started to see things in a whole new light or perspective. I dream of a future today. If you had told me at sixteem or seventeen that I would sit in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a bunch of "old fogies" and talk about my life and listen to theirs, I would have told you that you were completely insane. Now I do it on a weekly basis. It's wonderful. It gives me the courage, strength and hope to keep going. I'm truly grateful for the people who reached out to me and saw something in me that I did not see. They gave me hope to keep going. I'm truly grateful to this program because I would not be alive if it had not been for AA. I don't know that I would have died an alcoholic bum, but I think that, in an alcoholic stupor, I would have shot myself in the head. I was a loser and hopeless. Now I am not.   I'm coming up on five years clean and sober. "Surprise I made It" really hit. I feel like singing, "If You Could See Me Now" to the teachers in high school who did believe in me. I don't have a college education nor am I a mother of four children, but I am me. I am important. I'm a good and vital person in society. That's a wonderful feeling. There is nothing I wouldn't do for the person who helped me find AA. She's my friend and like a mother to me. I owe her a lot. I'm glad I'm where I am today. Sometimes I get mad because I'm an alcoholic. My twenty-first birthday in the program was a bitch but okay. As they say, "My worst day sober is better than my best day drunk." That's true. My life as a child was ugly but, through the program and other help, I can work through all that. I'm grateful and I can't say enough for the AA program. I see a lot of pain in people's eyes, who are still out there suffering from the disease of alcoholism. I can not give them what I have. I can share my experience, strength, and hope. I can let them know that they too can be a "Surprise I Made It." No one is ever that bad. I just wish they could feel what I feel. I go through ups and downs but I'm grateful. I don't know what the hell else to say -- thanks.