Meeting with the sponsor

I just stuffed myself full of Mexican food and laughter. My sponsor took me out to dinner after a meeting and asked me to tell my story. "Well," I started, "I started drinking when I was about twelve, drinking my parent's booze and refilling it with water." "Like any good alcoholic," she said. I don't know why I started doing it, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

From there I moved on to drugs. I started drinking, taking my prescription meds, and taking as much LSD as I could get my little paws on. In between, I smoked a lot of pot, too. I would keep a bottle of bourbon in my drawer at school and fill up my Pepsi for study hall. I always thought I was being a good girl and taking my meds all the time (well, most of the time), but I was adding so much other stuff on top that no wonder they never seemed to work. I overdosed at age 18, two weeks before graduation, and got kicked out of boarding school. I went on to be the proud owner of a GED. Hooray.

Amazingly, I stopped taking drugs (well, mostly) after that. I just moved on to sneaking the booze out of my dad's cabinet, or meeting people who could get me beer. Once I was 19, I moved out and went to live with an alcoholic boyfriend and went out every night to get drunk after work. One night I ended up sleeping in the bushes. Another, I had to yell for the cab driver to stop so I could vomit. Another time, I woke up in a ditch next to my cousin's car with people calling all over the place for me. Apparently I'd been gone a while.

By age 21 I'd found my bar. A nice little karaoke bar not far from my house, where I lived with the dj at the bar. The bartender was my best friend (really) and my boyfriend was another alcoholic regular. Every night, rain, shine, snow, school, I was down there drinking shots and beers and smoking like a chimney. The only thing to do in a smokey bar is to smoke, otherwise it just gets too much.

And I continued in that manner until I was 26. Suddenly, I had the chance to move to California (the rest of my life was in the shitter, so why not take my problems somewhere else?). This time, I moved on to wine. In California they have good wine. Napa, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, all great places for perfect wines. So I drank them. And since I didn't have the metro anymore, I drove myself from winery to winery, or from parties to home. I started off with a glass a night, until I moved in with another alcoholic (see a pattern emerging?). Then I drank to keep up, until I surpassed him and he had to drink more to keep up with me. I lost my job and spent every day of those four months drinking from sunrise to sunset. Sure, I sent in resumes too, and eventually got a job, but I was a drunk and 40 pounds heavier.

I joined Weight Watchers and limited my wine again. I would have a glass a week, or maybe two, but I kept within my allotted calories. Then, I would plan out my day so I had more calories to use on booze. I stopped eating so much, and lost those 40 pounds. When I began just trying to maintain my weight, I went back to one and two bottle nights twice a week.

By the end, I was drinking something every night, having "4 Bottle Fridays" with a friend, half bottle Thursdays with the girls, and weekends of debauchery. I ended up blackout drunk most nights, and hungover every morning.

And then it hit me: this is no way to live. I don't have to go on like this.

And so I stopped.