Step Five: When The Fog Lifts

My first drunk was adisaster. My parents went out for a New Year's Eve party. I was thirteen years old and I was alone. I decided to find out what drinking was about. So I stole a bottle of scotch from my dad's liquor cabinet and began to drink. I would take a drink and then get on my bike and ride around the block to see if I was getting what people called drunk. I did this several times until, somewhere along the line, I blacked out. I guess I finished most of the bottle but all I remember is coming out of the blackout in a hospital while my stomach was being pumped. My parents had found a red pill on the floor and thought I might be on drugs. It turned out to be a mint. Anyway, the police got involved, my school got involved, and the whole family was shaken up. I tell this story because this was the way I drank and used drugs for the next twenty years. I did not know how to stop. I got high every day.