- Alcohol
I stumbled into recovery unintentionally. It seems the universe knows how to pull my strings to get me to pay attention. A girl stepped into my life who was fun and exciting. She was so many of the things I thought I was looking for and she just happened to be sober.
I was just a weekend drinker and only occasionally got sloppy. Anytime I mentioned to my drinking buddies that maybe I should quit, they said I just needed to learn how to control it. The more I hung out with this girl, the less I drank and the stranger I felt. It seems that when you start drinking at an early age, your brain doesn’t develop properly. So when you stop drinking, the emotions that you have been suppressing for years just seem to fall out of you for a while.
When I mentioned to the sober girl that I was going to get sober, she was proud of me. But since she had gotten sober too, she knew I had no need for a relationship that could get in the way of my sobriety. So she brought me to a few meetings to get me started and wished me luck with unconditional love. I found the first three months to be the most awkward and alone. I had to find out where and when the meetings were and walk through those doors alone and raw. After the first 90 days, I became empowered by the tools of the 12 steps to keep going. In May, I will celebrate 17 years of sober living!