Back to home page Back to other stories   CARLA   Hi, I'm Carla and I'm an alcoholic and an addict. When I was in rehab my mother told me that the first time I got drunk I was three and a half. She had her friends over, and I sipped everyone's drink. The next morning my mom asked if I had a hangover or felt sick. I told her I felt fine. I was proud of myself. When I was eight or nine, my parents had a wine tasting party. I sat on the couch with my neighbor and she gave me wine. Again the next day, I was proud of myself because I felt fine. When I was older, my sister and I would mix dad drinks. He'd have bourbon and coke. I'd put the bourbon in the glass last and take a sip before I'd mix it.    All my life I've had low self esteem. I was very shy. The only thing I liked was gymnastics. I was real hyper, and activity was an escape for me. As I got older, I felt that I never "fit in." There were all these little cliques. I hated people sometimes. I'd get upset when someone had a party and invited everyone but me.    I drank in junior high but I didn't drink a lot or all the time until high school My freshman year I wasn't in the competitive band, just the marching band. Because of this, I felt out of place. My band director picked on me. He would say that I marched, played, and did everything the worst. it would hurt my feelings. I'd pretend it didn't. Sometimes, I drank over that. I always felt bad or inadequate. There were stoners in my classes. I couldn't stand them, and I hated having classes with them. By the end of the school year, I was their best friend and hung out with them. I had changed a lot. It was easy and fun to be with them. You could goof around and be a smart ass. It was easier than trying hard and doing all the things the stuck up people in high school do. Some of them were really bad and they would tell me how they got drunk everyday. I never thought that I would be like them. I thought that I was better than them. They would cheat and copy off me in school.    Between freshman and sophomore year, I went to summer school. That summer was a preview of my sophomore year. I had to drop out because I was not doing well. I was drinking. Friends and I would go shoplifting. After school we would go to the local drugstore or convenience store and steal liquor and other things. I felt terrible about myself.    I looked forward to my sophomore year of school. I played in the competition and marching band. I started practicing more. I was on the gymnastics team. I did well the first semester. It was hard because band took up so much of my time. I still wasn't good in band and the director still picked on and embarrassed me. A lot of times I'd get drunk after practice. I'd think about the band and the director, the jerk, and drink and hate him. I'd feel better drunk, numb. I drank "at" other people too. I had tried out for the winter color guard. I didn't make it because I hadn't practiced. I just gave up on a lot of stuff. I felt I was either going to make it or not. I cheated in most of my classes, copied off of friends. I didn't put any effort into anything. I think I was afraid that if I put effort into something and didn't make it that...well, I was afraid of failing. Whenever I was in a stressful situation, I didn't want to try; I just wanted to drink. I know this hurt me and gave me lower self esteem. I'd drink to get rid of those feelings. It seemed like it was their fault. I felt people should be more patient and understand me. I felt that I was a fake. That was how everyone was in high school - a fake. Everyone cared only about themselves. I didn't really know who I was. I wasn't a real person. I hid from myself. I'd be emotional or cold. I didn't know what I liked or didn't like. I'd mimic other people. I'd go along with the crowd for approval. I was afraid that if I said what I liked or didn't like that people wouldn't like me.    I hung out with a crowd in which we all felt we were cool. We caused trouble. We were all in first hour gym class. We would drink before gym class. We would put alcohol in hair spray bottles. One time my friend slept over and we drank a lot. The next morning, when I woke up, I was lying in barf. It was so sick. This was my first blackout. Another time, I slept over at her house and we drank. I remember thinking that I would rather drink by myself. When I drank by myself I was quieter, there was less chance of being caught, and no one else knew about me.    In the later fall, early winter of that year, my drinking got a lot worse. I would drink three or four times a week. Sometimes, I would wet my bed. I would get sick and throw up in the kitchen or bathroom. It didn't bother me. Over spring break I spent the night at a friend's house. We got stoned and we met these guys. We went out with them, and we got drunk. That was the first time I got drunk around guys. It was the first time I drove with a drunk driver. I was only fifteen and sixteen when I was drinking heavy. I never thought of taking the car out when I drank because I knew a girl who killed her friend driving drunk. That night we were in the back of this guy's pickup truck. We were all stoned and drunk. I knew it was wrong. I didn't want to look like a nerd or disapprove, and I went along with it. We ditched school the next day and went out drinking. School called our parents and we got in trouble. This was the last time I drank before I was sent to rehab.    I was the only girl in the rehab. I was afraid when I got there. I was glad there was no girls. The stoner girls that I knew were very competitive for guys, and they were big and mean. They picked a lot of fights. I was afraid that in the rehab the girls would be that way. After a week, I started to open up. My counselors liked me, and thought I was such a nice girl. I put on this act for them. When it was just the patients I'd try to be one of the guys. It seemed like there were so many different sides to me. I never knew what was me. Eventually I started doing well in rehab. I got stoned with my friends while in the rehab. The counselors had a big meeting and decided that since I was doing so well, up to that point, that I could stay. I stuck with the rehab and made some friends.    After rehab, I went back to high school There were only two weeks of school to finish for the year. It was hard. I started going to AA meetings in my local area. I was really shy. I started talking more in meetings. I began helping with the ash trays and other things. People talked to me, and I talked more. I liked the meetings a lot more after that.    I started to see a psychiatrist. I went to see him for a year. When I was drinking and even after I got sober, I had so many emotional problems. Suicide was one of my main problems. I wanted to die or sleep. I had so much pressure on me, especially in sobriety. I couldn't escape through alcohol. I tried to be numb but couldn't. I still didn't have any confidence. I thought I shouldn't try hard at anything. I still cheated, and I didn't feel good about it. There was a lot of self discovery. I would tell my psychiatrist about all my feelings. I had an AA sponsor, but I didn't use her. My psychiatrist was more like my sponsor. He didn't have any answers. Crying seemed to help. Sometimes, I had to just feel the way I did and there would be nothing that would get me out of it. The Third Step of AA helped me, too.    All my friends had boyfriends so they were busy on weekends. I spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday nights at home. I would sit and watch TV. That was the same thing I did drinking. I really looked forward to the Friday night AA meeting. It gave me some place to go. Band got better after I got sober. I don't know whether it was because I was sober or because I had been in band for a while and knew how to march. I wasn't picked on as much my junior and senior years. That felt good.    After my first year of sobriety, I was seventeen and started to feel a lot better. I had more self confidence. I spoke at an open AA meeting at a hospital. I was very nervous. After the meeting, an older girl came over to me and asked for my phone number. We talked on the phone, and I was her temporary sponsor. We went to meetings together, and it was fun. With our home group we went bowling and served dinner at the ALANO club. Things kept getting better as I got more involved in AA. I was the young people chairperson for the State AA Spring Conference. Once a month I went to a meeting to plan for it. It helped me out a lot to be involved in the program. My second year of sobriety I chaired a meeting for six months with my home group. This was a great experience. I felt a part of everything for the first time in my life. I felt as if I had the meetings not only to stay sober, but that the members were my little family. I was comfortable at the meetings. I was still a little insecure. I was still in high school and it was hard. I wanted to "fit in." I had a lot of friends there. I felt that I was missing out on all the high school fun. Toward the end of my senior year, I began hanging out with different crowds. We would go to parties.    The summer that I graduated from high school I attended junior college. I felt more grown up. I liked that. I started dating this guy. I was eighteen, and he was twenty-three. His father was one of my idols on the program. His son was so terrible. He would lie to me. His father would be surprised at what he told me, and he would tell me the truth. I finally got fed up with it and broke up with the son.    I starting dating another guy that was in my psychology class. I found that he was on probation for dealing drugs. He said he had straightened out his life and that he didn't do that anymore. We would go to parties, and he would smoke pot or drink. I decided that I could handle it. I had been sober for two and a half years. I liked him a lot. He got kicked out of his house. I felt sorry for him. He was a total drug addict and alcoholic, but I couldn't see it. He blamed everything on everyone else. I believed him. He had a job, but he needed more money so he started dealing drugs, again. I went to less and less AA meetings. He was jealous of my volunteering. Guys volunteered at the hospital with me, and would call me. He decided he didn't want me to volunteer anymore, and I quit. I started spending more and more time with him. Every time we were together he would drink. I never said anything because I trusted him. it was really stupid. I couldn't see all the trouble I was getting myself into with him. All the old problems with my thinking came back. I'd go to a party with him after work, and I'd be tired and stressed. I'd think that if they are all having fun and drinking, why can't I? He would drink and drive, so, why can't I? He was a functional abuser. He started doing cocaine again. I tried to help him quit, but he got worse. I was really on the verge of doing it two different times. I was still sober though and didn't want to throw it all away on cocaine, but maybe on alcohol. A week or two later I did throw it away on pot and than alcohol. We were at his friends house. They were passing around a joint. They passed it to me. I guess it was supposed to be a joke. I grabbed it. Before I knew, it was in my mouth. I know I was planning on relapsing. I remember being at school thinking about getting drunk. I got really stoned. My boyfriend thought it was funny that I was stoned. He laughed about it. I felt weird. It was so intense because my body was not used to it. I felt like, why did I do this. I was totally out of control. I had never been that messed up on pot.    When we came home from the weekend, I still used. I would get stoned because that was what was available. After a while, I would get my boyfriend to buy alcohol for me. I'd drink wine coolers and get stoned to make it more intense. My mom went out of town, and my dad worked nights. My boyfriend would come over to my house and stay until three or four in the morning. We decided that I should get a job, move out of the house, and live with him. It was a dumb idea because initially I had become sober for my future. He wanted me to give up my education and everything for him. I knew moving out would cause a major rift in our family. I didn't care. I made plans even though I was scared. I didn't really want to move out.   After about a week, we got into a fight. I found out that he was cheating on me with his old girlfriend. I was really hurt. On the day we broke up, I decided to quit drinking. I talked to my sponsor and told her everything. I went to a meeting and discussed the relapse. At first I felt funny there. I wanted to escape, but I stayed through the whole meeting. I felt better by the end.   I started going back to meetings regularly. I began hanging out with other young AAs. It was hard because I wanted to drink and use. I was depressed and hurt by my boyfriend. I was very impatient. I didn't think of suicide because I did know it would get better. It had before. The first time I got sober, I didn't know what to expect, but this time I did. I was honest about my feelings and it did get better.   I went to Washington to spend some time with my aunt who was dying of cancer. Prescription drugs were everywhere. I knew I had to do something and was willing to do it. I did my AA Fourth and Fifth Steps. That helped me to feel better. I started to pray more. When I got home, school started again. I began to date a guy I worked with at the grocery store. My Program kept getting stronger. I knew more about myself. The first year of this sobriety has been better than my other first year. I have healed a lot quicker. I have used the AA program to stop smoking. All in all, I guess I would have to say that it has been a struggle, but it is worth it! Thanks!