I grew up in a working class family. Our family was mosty close knit until the late elementary years. I had a younger brother born in 1990. Two summers later in 1992 he died by drowing in a pool while I was babysitting him. I would never be the same careless child again. I continued to be a good student but were afraid people around me were talking about how I killed my brother.
During Junior High and Freshman year I hung around the popular kids but soon realize the B crowd was nicer and were having more fun.
So at the age of 15 I started to drink. I got drunk that first night I drank. As the big book says "I had arrived." All my insecurities left me and it was love at first drunk. I continued to drink every weekend until I graduated high school as Salutatorian of my class.
I went on to college after high school. It was about 200 miles away from my parents. I had no idea what I wanted a degree in so I focused on partying. Having grown up in the country I didn't know how to related to these middle classed kids who grew up in the suburbs. Drinking soon became my identity. I accumulated 2 MIPs my first year at that new school. The second half of my sophomore year was spent drinking daily and using ecstasy one or two times a week. It seemed like the perfect cure for my undiagnosed bipolar depression.
After that semester I moved home to work because I had stopped earning college credits. One day I got drunk in the afternoon when I should be working so my mom sent me to treatment and the ripe age of 21. I soon moved to the treatment town and then went back to drinking and even snorting some drugs. At this point I had realized that I wanted to be a nurse and was taking one class toward a BSN. While in this town I went from being hypomanic to severely depressed in a very short time. I took an entire bottle of Flexeril and ended up coding from it in the ICU.
So I moved home again. That April my father went through the ice on his snowmobile and passed away. I started to take prereq classes for nursing but many days I would drive the 60 miles to school to go sit at the bar that opened at 7. I would stay there all day and go home as if I'd gone to my classes. The next semester my mom sent me to Meninger hospital in Texas, from there they sent me to Florida. After 9 months I moved back to Michigan to begin prereqs for nursing school. My last drink was 2 glasses of wine with my best friend after I had completed 2 treatments and 6 months of halfway house living. After the wine ran out I immediately wanted to go to the bar. It rang true what I had heard in meetings about an alcoholic not being able to stop. I forced my car to drive home. That January 4, 2005 was my last drink. I moved away from my mom and into a friend's house downstate and started nursing prereqs. I was introduced to a young people's meeting and convinced myself they would become my new friends. I have now been married to one of the members of that group for over a year. I finished the entire nursing program in 3 years and I have 3 years sober. I essentially got sober because I wanted to be a nurse so much. I just got my first RN job offer again.
Now that I know what my life can be like sober, I don't plan to ever drink again. I go to at least one meeting a week, talk to my sponsor, and continue to pray. I am entirely grateful that with a good psychiatrist and AA meetings that I have a wonderful life today.
