Seventeen is too young to be an alcoholic. Aren’t alcoholics old people who drink from brown paper bags and live under bridges?

I walked into my first AA meeting in September of 2011. I was a shell of the man I had been. Only 22 years old, beaten and broken, with no hope and nowhere else to go.

I was 7 years old when I picked up my first drink. I immediately wanted more. I knew I was an alcoholic by age 9, because my mind would obsess about drinking.

I came to AA completely and absolutely broken. I had just gotten an alcohol-monitoring bracelet, because even the courts knew I had a problem before I did.

I moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2022 to attend treatment after yet another slip. I had entered the rooms of AA after finding recovery in an Alaskan prison at age 17.

When I was 11, I convinced an altar boy to steal a bottle of sacristy wine and a bag of hosts.

I first attempted to get sober the week I turned 16. I had been drinking consistently for five years, and as much as I didn’t want to stop, I knew deeply that I had a problem.

My alcoholic father celebrated my eighth birthday by getting me drunk. In the beginning, I absolutely loved the way alcohol made me feel.

For many years I didn’t feel comfortable with Step Six. The first time I approached it all my sponsor would say was, “Remember, it says ‘were entirely ready.’” His advice was not much help.

A while back, when I was living in Florida, I kept hearing about Step Six. It was an awakening of sorts. I think this particular Step gets overlooked in AA.

I once spent countless hours drunk, solving all the world’s problems. Pick a topic: politics, religion, sports, careers or other people’s relationships.

In May of 1990 my dad died unexpectedly. He was 77, and I was 38 with about two months sober. When Father’s Day came around the following month I had a rough time.

When you see a stoplight flashing red, that means it’s time to stop the car. It’s not a suggestion. After a few years of sobriety, I mindlessly drove through a flashing red stoplight.

I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. Just across the Red River was Bossier City, a place where you could get most anything you wanted. I had my first drink there at age 14.

It was right after Iran’s revolution and at the beginning of the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq when I was born. Iran is an Islamic country, and it has strict religious laws.

As a 40-year veteran of working as a flight attendant, my job is to be of service to others. Everywhere I go and everyone I meet has a journey and a story.

When timing is a gift of grace, miracles can happen.

With God’s grace I got sober in Minnesota 32 years ago. My first months of sobriety were earned during the coldest and darkest parts of the northern winter.

Before I got to AA I can remember sitting in despair, asking a power that I always called God why he wasn’t stopping me from doing the things I was doing.

After confessing to a priest that I drank too much beer, he directed me to a meeting of AA downstairs in the church. I went reluctantly.

There I was, 48 years old, four months sober and ready to take on the world. After 20 years of nightly drinking, I was now going to all those damn AA meetings (they called it a “90 in 90