Relapse Is Not A Requirement

I first came to AA at the age of 18. I had been drinking alcoholically since I was 13 and my teenage years were filled with problems—legal trouble, being expelled from school, my mom kicking me out of the house at age 17. Even at that age I was already akin to the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mentioned in the Big Book. I, too, was never “mildly intoxicated” but  always “insanely drunk.”