An Unfamiliar Bond

Before I found AA, I tried everything--from years of counseling to support groups and self-help books. No matter what I did, my home, work, friendships, and spiritual life were a mess. Maintaining this mess required picking fights, showing off at work, defying rules, obsessing on being abused as a child and as a teen, throwing tantrums, panic attacks, screaming rages, brewing resentments, recurring bouts of depression, putting others down to prove I was right, self-injury, fear of people, temper tantrums, unrelenting perfectionism, fear of poverty, and getting fired often. Trying to hide the above and explaining to family and friends why I moved from job to job required increasing creativity.