Thankfully, there isn’t a set amount that we have to drink or certain things that we have to lose for us to become members of this Fellowship. I always remember that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” I know I have this desire, so I will keep coming back.
Jennifer B.
Libertyville, Illinois
July 1999
My Sneakers Never Looked As Good As Yours
ALTHOUGH I ONLY DRANK FOR FIVE YEARS, I am an alcoholic. I was born with this disease and I will die with this disease. Without AA, I would be dead. I am so grateful for this program. It has given me eleven years of sobriety this month. Everything I am is a direct result of God and AA.
When I speak, I talk about my childhood a little, not because I blame anything that happened for my alcoholism. I talk about it because I believe I was born with this disease. Whether I came from a mansion or a cardboard box, I would still be an alcoholic.
As a child I always felt different. I like to say I had a God hole. I was filled with fear. I never felt like I measured up. I always just fell short. I judged my insides by everyone’s outsides. They all looked so happy. I wanted to feel the way they looked. I just didn’t know how to get there.
I come from a loving home. Alcohol was always present, but I wouldn’t consider it an alcoholic home. I was adopted at age three but I was never made to feel different. Yet I was always filled with fear. And that God hole was always there.
The best way I can describe the way I felt is with my sneaker story. When I was a kid, sneakers were a big thing. If you had a cool pair of sneakers, then you were cool. So I would see a cool pair of sneakers on someone and I would go out and get the same pair as they had. But for some reason my sneakers didn’t look as good on me as they did on other people. I was in constant turmoil. If I could have unzipped my skin and crawled out, I would have. I was always searching for a way to feel okay, something that would take the fear away.
I had my first drink at age eleven. I had seen drinking as a kid. I noticed before people started drinking they were quiet. But after a few drinks, they seemed to be happy. I wanted what they had. So a friend and I raided his mother’s liquor cabinet one night. I had a little bit of everything. And then it happened! For the first time in my life, I felt okay. The fear was gone. And my sneakers were as good as everybody else’s, and if they weren’t, it didn’t matter. I could talk to people, I was as good as, and I measured up to. I knew then that I was going to drink whenever I could.
The “Twelve and Twelve” says that “alcohol the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and will to resist its demands.” “Rapacious” means “feeds on living prey.” When I look back, I realize that alcohol robbed me blind. It stole family, opportunities, and finally my desire to live. At the end, I prayed for death.
I became a violent alcoholic. I got in a lot of trouble with the police. At the age of fourteen, I got my first unlicensed DWI. Six months after that I got my second DWI. I got into fights and got locked up in a ten-by-ten holding cell several times. Each time I got locked up, I’d say to myself, “How could this have happened again? This time it was going to be different.” It never was any different. But I believed alcohol took away the fear. I wasn’t prepared to give that up.
The minute I picked up the first drink I no longer had control of how much I would have or what I was going to do. I sat downstairs with my bottle of whiskey like a mad scientist, trying to figure out the right mix so that I could drink normally.
I did what alcohol told me. What choice did I have?
I came around AA for about a year before I got sober. From my first meeting I knew I belonged. I just thought I was too young. People would tell me when I came back in, “You never have to feel this way again.” In December 1987, through the grace of God and AA, I finally believed that in my heart. This program gave me hope even when I didn’t want it. AA people made me feel okay. God filled the God hole. Everything I looked for in a bottle I found in AA.
My life is beautiful today. I stay close to AA. I try to help another alcoholic. I am active in my home group. I got my driver’s license, I turned twenty-one, got married, had a son, and I did it all sober. To all the young people out there who are unsure, I want to say, “Keep coming back, no matter what.” Enjoy the gift of sobriety and try to pass it on.
I would like to close with a line from a prayer I read: “I asked God for all things that I may enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things.”
John L.
Howell, New Jersey
September 1999
Far from Innocent
WHEN I ENTERED ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, I was twenty-one years old. Notice that I did not say “only twenty-one,” but “twenty-one.” I have never heard people say they came in when they were “only forty-eight,” so why should I be any different? Being in AA for over a year now, I have noticed that people respond differently to young AA members than they do to older members of the Fellowship. At meetings, people will say, “It’s so nice to see you young people here tonight!” To this day, I have not heard that said about the older members or the old-timers. Why not? It’s good to see them too, right? It’s nice to see any alcoholic, of any age, on any given night.
Older members tell me how lucky I am that I didn’t have to go through what they did. How do they know what I went through? The circumstances and duration of time might be different, but the emotional hell is the same or similar. The Big Book tells me that one does not have to drink long to be gravely affected, as does my own life experience. Eight years of drinking caused me to give away everything I had, physically and emotionally. My family would no longer speak with me, and by my own doing, I was forced to live on the street. Having no social or employable skills, I stole and panhandled in order to survive. More importantly, though, I lost my dignity, self-respect, and dreams of ever having a fulfilling life. Did I lose enough, or should I have lost more? The only thing I didn’t lose by coming in so young is years of time. If I was so lucky to be here, why didn’t I win the lottery? Luck did not get me here, God did.
Why do people assume that a person is brand-new if he or she is young? A friend of mine, eighteen years old, has over three years of sobriety, yet people constantly treat him as if he is new. In the beginning, the phrase “Keep coming back” was encouraging. Today, it is insulting. If someone says that to me, it is because they have stereotyped me. Maybe people feel that we are not serious about sobriety, but that is a misconception. I take sobriety seriously, but try not to do that with life.
Young people are not “kids”; they are young adults. Many of us come from broken homes and shattered lives and have not been “kids” for many years. Do not judge us by our innocent appearance, for many of us are far from innocent. Do not condescend to us, because we are intelligent and you damage your attempt to be useful. Instead, love us as you would any other member in the family of Alcoholics Anonymous. What we lack in wisdom, we make up in enthusiasm and spirit. If I said I killed someone because I got behind the wheel intoxicated, would you take me seriously then? How old do you have to be to destroy someone else’s life?
Young and old and everything in-between, we are all in this together. Without the older generation, there would have been no one to carry the message to me. Saying thank-you would not be enough, but my appreciation can be shown by carrying the message to the next generation. We are definitely people who normally would not mix, but we are definitely not normal people. Despite our many differences, the harmony in which we get along and coexist is truly amazing.
Young