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Progress Not Perfection

I started drinking at the age of twelve. My weekends were filled with parties and driving around with friends getting drunk. I learned quickly that if I hung around with older guys and flirted with them I got as much alcohol as I wanted. I liked the feelings of excitement and escaping from myself. I wanted to be twenty, not twelve. I didn't want my mom ruling over me and interfering with my drinking and my social life.

After only two years of drinking, I crossed that invisible line into alcoholism. The summer before my freshman year in high school was one big blackout. I was raped one night after a party, too drunk to fight back. Another night I overdosed on drugs. The alcohol no longer allowed me to escape, but instead kept me as its prisoner, the old tapes running over and over again in my mind.

My mom and my counselor did an intervention and put me into an adolescent treatment center soon after I turned fourteen years old. Afterward, I got a sponsor and started attending AA meetings. I stayed sober off and on for over a year, and then drew away from all my AA connections.

I started hanging around old drinking buddies and met Joe. I ran away to Oregon with him. Joe was arrested and I was put into a foster home. I ran away from there after just three hours, and found myself totally alone and broke. I sold my body for $50.00 and some alcohol. The next morning I hopped on a bus and went to live with my alcoholic father, thinking my problem all along had been my over-controlling mother who was interfering with my life. Three weeks later I found myself in a group home for youth.

My last drunk was at my father's house. I've been sober over fours years now. I'm nineteen years old and in my second year of college. I sponsor two young women and attend a minimum for four AA meetings a week.

My first year of college was a big transition. I found myself trying to be an "upstanding AA member" and a wild, reckless college student at the same time. I would go to meetings and talk the talk, but outside of the meetings I would go to parties. I wasn't drinking, but the way I was behaving you'd never have known it. I tried to lead two separate lives, but eventually my God-consciousness got to me. I couldn't go on. I was depressed and confused. I was once again living my program, and it wasn't working.

Today I try to live the AA program, one based on action and honesty. I've come to know a peace and serenity that used to elude me. The promises are starting to come true for me. I'm so grateful for the God of my understanding, my new sponsor, and the AA members who guide me. My life is still very unmanageable in some areas, but it's getting better one day at a time.

S. M., Brookings, South Dakota

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