Young, Sober and Free
I am 24 years old and recently celebrated two years of sobriety. I never imagined my life turning out this way. I used to joke that I didn’t think I would live past age 25 and I really believed that. I was deeply terrified of the future, of becoming an adult, of living in the misery of my disease for the rest of my life. The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous has saved my life.
I grew up in a home with both parents from alcoholic families. Although my parents were not alcoholics themselves, both of their dads died as untreated alcoholics and the disease had a large impact on their lives. My parents had grown up without much control in their lives so my sister and I were raised in a much more controlled environment. My sister and my parents clashed quite a bit and I felt a lot of pressure to be the perfect child and hold the family together. There was an immense amount of turmoil in our house with all the fighting and I struggled with panic attacks and depression from a young age.
I got drunk for the first time at age 14. I remember it so vividly- the feeling of complete freedom for the first time in my life. A release from all the voices in my head that were constantly overthinking and making me miserable. I blacked out that night. I hated the taste of alcohol but kept drinking because I loved what it did for me. After that night, I drank whenever I got the chance. My parents didn’t keep alcohol in the house but would occasionally have some wine with dinner and I remember the urge I felt to drink was so powerful that I would take gulps from their glasses when they weren’t looking.
My thirst for alcohol continued to intensify and it began to consume me. Part of my experience with this disease is that I felt a rush from the fact that I had an external “perfect child” facade that I kept up with all the adults in my life, and then a rebellious side that only my friends knew about. My ego grew every time I got away with a lie about my drinking. I was able to make it through high school without being caught, although I should have been many times because I was making increasingly risky decisions such as frequently driving drunk. I also began to use drugs in high school and that increased the speed at which my disease grew.
I was drinking and using drugs on a daily basis by the time I started my first year of college. I continued to try to maintain my facade, but the cracks began to show. My drinking and drug use determined who I hung out with and caused problems in friendships with people I really cared about because they could see I had a problem. I would isolate myself from anyone who I thought could see my alcoholism because I cared more about drinking than I did about anything else. I lived in a constant haze - never remembering almost anything that was happening in my life. I continued to drink on a daily basis and it began to be the first thing I would do when I woke up.
As time went on, my depression became worse than it ever had. I knew deep down that I had a problem with substances, but I knew I was unable to control my urge to drink. Hopelessness led me to my first suicide attempt, I dropped out of school and was hospitalized. That was when the lies I had been telling to my parents for years caught up to me. I vowed to stop drinking and using drugs. Once I got out of the hospital, I only made it a day before I began to drink and use drugs again. I started an outpatient program for depression that required sobriety, but I was not sober for one day of it. On the last day, I came clean to my therapist about my use and she suggested I get evaluated for substance abuse disorder. That was the first time anyone had suggested that to me and it really scared me. I decided not to get the evaluation – I was nowhere near ready to accept the reality of my disease.
I continued to use all day, every day and kept it a secret from my family. I applied to transfer to another school, out of state, thinking that would be the cure to all my problems. I promised myself that at the new school I would get my act together and stop drinking, except on the weekends. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen, and I continued to feel like I was drowning in the unmanageability of my substance use. I was not able to control it in the slightest, despite all my efforts. After about a month at the new school, I opened up to one of my new friends and told them I felt like I had a problem. That friend was familiar with 12-step programs. I attended one focused on my drug use, and thought it meant I could still drink, and just not use drugs, so I continued to drink. My drinking increased and I started putting alcohol in a thermos and carrying it to class so I could drink during class.
I was intoxicated during my first 12-step meeting. I introduced myself and for the first time in my life said out loud that I was an alcoholic and an addict. I felt immense relief admitting it and decided to attack the 12-step Program like other things in my life - with the expectation of perfection. I had no real understanding of the Program, I thought I could do the 12 steps, check them off my to-do list and be cured. I made the mistake of telling all of my friends that I was no longer drinking or using, thinking it would give me a sense of accountability. I even put my newcomer chip on a string around my neck. My misunderstanding of the Program and oversharing about it exacerbated the problem. When I relapsed with drugs after a few days, I felt like I had let everyone down and needed to keep it a secret. I kept going to meetings and talking to my sponsor, but I couldn’t be honest about my relapse so I just pretended I was sober. After a couple weeks of that, I stopped talking to my sponsor, and continued to drink and use drugs in secret. I started hanging out with other friends who didn’t know I was supposed to be sober. They drank and used drugs like I did so I was able to continue to deceive myself that I was a ‘normy’.
Inside my head I was miserable. I remember journaling during my first relapse and writing “why did I do this? I hate this feeling and have never felt so awful.” Despite knowing how horrible I felt when I relapsed, I couldn’t stop. I was physically very sick. I threw up blood because I had worn a hole in my esophagus and had to go to the ER. Despite my physical and mental decline, I still couldn’t stop and continued with my constant drinking and drug use.
When the pandemic hit, everyone was evacuated from school and had to move home. That was the final straw for me. After living a lie and convincing myself everything would be fine, once it felt like the world was ending, I gave up any effort to try and hide my problem. Moving home made it very difficult for me to continue drinking the way I wanted to. Once again, I attempted suicide. I wasn’t hospitalized because of the pandemic, but my sister was so worried about me committing suicide that she would sleep in my bed and wouldn’t let me leave her sight. My parents knew I was suicidal because of my substance use and gave me an ultimatum that if I was going to keep living with them, I had to get sober. I decided to live on my friend’s couch rather than quit. I took a bag of my clothes and left. I spent that summer sleeping on a couch, and my drinking and drug use was so bad that I would wake up in the night with withdrawals and have to drink. I wanted to quit so badly, but felt utterly powerless. Alcohol and drugs felt like the largest magnets in the world and I couldn’t stop myself from being sucked back in over and over again.
I dropped out of my second school. I was sexually assaulted while I was blacked out. It was with someone who I had been close to since elementary school. My anxiety was so bad, I stopped eating for the week after it happened and after much thought, I decided to report it to the police. Going through the process of reporting it was extremely difficult. My family was not supportive of me, we had barely spoken in months, and by this point most of my friends had distanced themselves from me because of my constant use. The family of the person who sexually assaulted me had previously been close to me for years. After I went to the police, they turned on me and went to extreme lengths to attack me legally. I felt utterly betrayed and isolated. My world had completely crumbled around me and I was at rock bottom.
I decided I was ready to get help and to get sober. I started an outpatient group for alcoholism and I took my last drink on October 4th, 2020. October 5th was my first 24 hours sober in years and it was horrible. I was white-knuckling it. I went to the outpatient group that week, but by Thursday when they asked if I could stay sober and stay safe through the weekend, I said I wasn’t sure. I was suicidal once again. They were required to call the police and take me to the emergency room to get evaluated. I wasn’t admitted to the hospital but I realized I needed in-patient treatment. At that point I was ready to do whatever it took to get sober and try to get out of this miserable state.
I was admitted to in-patient treatment the following week. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t even realize it was a 12-step treatment program and as soon as I discovered that I closed my mind off. I am so grateful now that it was, but at the time I thought I had tried that before and it hadn’t worked, so I was above it. The month in the treatment program was really difficult. I felt so isolated and lost. I fought back a lot against the treatment program during the first few weeks. I was still in a hazy state as my body was detoxing and I took out my anger at myself on the treatment center. Although in retrospect I was very lucky to be there, at the time all I did was complain – about our rigid schedule, about the food, about the lack of my cell phone and only getting one call a day. It was easier to focus on the external negatives of the circumstance than it was to look inward at myself. After a few weeks, I had opened up my mind to the 12 steps and realized what a massive impact drinking and substances had on my life. I knew I was an alcoholic with every fiber of my being. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I felt something while in treatment that I didn’t recognize – I didn’t know what I was feeling at first and then I realized what I was feeling was hope.
After leaving in-patient treatment, I knew I had to find an AA meeting. I found one in my area, found a sponsor and started going to a meeting every day. I also had day-treatment during the day. For those first several months, my whole life was dedicated to my recovery – it was how I spent all of my time. I didn’t have anyone who had been in my life from before I got sober, I was completely starting over. Because the person who sexually assaulted me was someone I went to school with, I was afraid to talk to any of my friends who knew him because he was fighting the case and I didn’t trust anyone not to betray me. In retrospect I have realized this was a gift – I needed to be completely immersed in starting a new life or I would’ve slipped back into my old ways.
Slowly, things started to get better. I realized how much I enjoyed meetings and the connections I was making through the AA Program. Even though I was the youngest person in all of my meetings, I didn’t care because I felt seen and accepted for who I was for the first time in my life. I slowly started to rebuild my relationships with my family and began to figure out who I am as a sober person. By the time I was 6 months sober, I had decided I wanted to finish my college degree and applied to transfer, once again, but this time to my local university so I wouldn’t have to leave my sober community.
I struggled with the God part of the AA Program at the beginning. I was raised religiously but it wasn’t something I connected with. My Higher Power became a conglomeration of the things in my life that reminded me I was powerless and was not in control: the forces of nature, my AA group, and all the little things that I started to notice in my life that weren’t coincidences – they were signs from my Higher Power. For example, I might be having a tough day and I will go to a meeting and the reading will happen to be about the exact thing I am struggling with. Or I will be having a wonderful day and someone in the Program will reach out who I haven’t heard from in a while needing support and I am able to help them. These are things I never would’ve noticed before I got sober, but now I realize that they happen for a reason. The more I put in the effort to talk to my Higher Power throughout the day, the closer I feel to that entity and the more I trust the ability I have to turn my will over to my Higher Power. I used to be of the mindset that if there was a God, how could bad things happen in the world? I have come to realize that life is still difficult in recovery, the difference is that through the AA Program I have been given a toolset to deal with the hardships in life and accept that there are lessons I can learn from difficult experiences.
There have been times in my sobriety when I have felt the pull of the self-pity swirl. I have felt like an outsider for being sober in my early twenties. When I begin to fall into that mindset, I remind myself of a phrase I heard in treatment, “poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.” Self-pity is the opposite of what I truly feel about being young and being in recovery. I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a beautiful program to teach me how to live at such a young age. Working through the steps has shown me all the aspects of my emotional sobriety that require work even after being physically sober. I have realized the gift of being of service to other alcoholics. Chairing meetings, staying to clean up, sharing my story, and reaching out to newcomers are truly what has kept me sober on multiple occasions.
After two years of sobriety, I have seen the AA Promises begin to come true in my life. I have incredible relationships with the people I know through the AA Program, my family is supportive of me and I have heathy relationships with my parents again after working this program. Going back to school as a sober person caused me to confront the way I used substances as an identity and has forced me to learn who I really am. I have made wonderful friends through school that are my own age and are supportive of my recovery.
I know that I am never going to be cured from alcoholism. It will always be a part of who I am. Rather than fight that like I did for years, I have learned that since I embraced the AA Program, as promised, I have been given a life beyond my wildest dreams. Regular meetings, talking with my Higher Power throughout the day, working the steps and reminding myself that I’m an alcoholic will continue to be the ways I use to stay sober. Alcoholics Anonymous has given me what I always wanted from substances – peace and freedom. It has given me my life back, and for that I am eternally grateful.
I used to think that being young and facing a life without substances was the worst possible future. I didn’t understand the ways that sobriety could improve my life. I am no longer numb or suicidal. I no longer wake up with extreme anxiety and a bad hangover or strong cravings. I am able to experience the beautiful moments in life and actually remember them and be present for them. In the beginning of my sobriety, I couldn’t bear to think about living the rest of my life sober – the only thing that got me through was taking it one day at a time. Now, I can’t imagine my life without Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t think I would still be alive if I hadn’t gotten sober. No matter your age, being part of Alcoholics Anonymous will help you feel seen and understood. It will help you learn how to embrace life on life’s terms, and it will help you feel free from the dark cloud of alcoholism that has been weighing you down.
I am 24 years old and recently celebrated two years of sobriety. I never imagined my life turning out this way. I used to joke that I didn’t think I would live past age 25 and I really believed that. I was deeply terrified of the future, of becoming an adult, of living in the misery of my disease for the rest of my life. The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous has saved my life.
I grew up in a home with both parents from alcoholic families. Although my parents were not alcoholics themselves, both of their dads died as untreated alcoholics and the disease had a large impact on their lives. My parents had grown up without much control in their lives so my sister and I were raised in a much more controlled environment. My sister and my parents clashed quite a bit and I felt a lot of pressure to be the perfect child and hold the family together. There was an immense amount of turmoil in our house with all the fighting and I struggled with panic attacks and depression from a young age.
I got drunk for the first time at age 14. I remember it so vividly- the feeling of complete freedom for the first time in my life. A release from all the voices in my head that were constantly overthinking and making me miserable. I blacked out that night. I hated the taste of alcohol but kept drinking because I loved what it did for me. After that night, I drank whenever I got the chance. My parents didn’t keep alcohol in the house but would occasionally have some wine with dinner and I remember the urge I felt to drink was so powerful that I would take gulps from their glasses when they weren’t looking.
My thirst for alcohol continued to intensify and it began to consume me. Part of my experience with this disease is that I felt a rush from the fact that I had an external “perfect child” facade that I kept up with all the adults in my life, and then a rebellious side that only my friends knew about. My ego grew every time I got away with a lie about my drinking. I was able to make it through high school without being caught, although I should have been many times because I was making increasingly risky decisions such as frequently driving drunk. I also began to use drugs in high school and that increased the speed at which my disease grew.
I was drinking and using drugs on a daily basis by the time I started my first year of college. I continued to try to maintain my facade, but the cracks began to show. My drinking and drug use determined who I hung out with and caused problems in friendships with people I really cared about because they could see I had a problem. I would isolate myself from anyone who I thought could see my alcoholism because I cared more about drinking than I did about anything else. I lived in a constant haze - never remembering almost anything that was happening in my life. I continued to drink on a daily basis and it began to be the first thing I would do when I woke up.
As time went on, my depression became worse than it ever had. I knew deep down that I had a problem with substances, but I knew I was unable to control my urge to drink. Hopelessness led me to my first suicide attempt, I dropped out of school and was hospitalized. That was when the lies I had been telling to my parents for years caught up to me. I vowed to stop drinking and using drugs. Once I got out of the hospital, I only made it a day before I began to drink and use drugs again. I started an outpatient program for depression that required sobriety, but I was not sober for one day of it. On the last day, I came clean to my therapist about my use and she suggested I get evaluated for substance abuse disorder. That was the first time anyone had suggested that to me and it really scared me. I decided not to get the evaluation – I was nowhere near ready to accept the reality of my disease.
I continued to use all day, every day and kept it a secret from my family. I applied to transfer to another school, out of state, thinking that would be the cure to all my problems. I promised myself that at the new school I would get my act together and stop drinking, except on the weekends. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen, and I continued to feel like I was drowning in the unmanageability of my substance use. I was not able to control it in the slightest, despite all my efforts. After about a month at the new school, I opened up to one of my new friends and told them I felt like I had a problem. That friend was familiar with 12-step programs. I attended one focused on my drug use, and thought it meant I could still drink, and just not use drugs, so I continued to drink. My drinking increased and I started putting alcohol in a thermos and carrying it to class so I could drink during class.
I was intoxicated during my first 12-step meeting. I introduced myself and for the first time in my life said out loud that I was an alcoholic and an addict. I felt immense relief admitting it and decided to attack the 12-step Program like other things in my life - with the expectation of perfection. I had no real understanding of the Program, I thought I could do the 12 steps, check them off my to-do list and be cured. I made the mistake of telling all of my friends that I was no longer drinking or using, thinking it would give me a sense of accountability. I even put my newcomer chip on a string around my neck. My misunderstanding of the Program and oversharing about it exacerbated the problem. When I relapsed with drugs after a few days, I felt like I had let everyone down and needed to keep it a secret. I kept going to meetings and talking to my sponsor, but I couldn’t be honest about my relapse so I just pretended I was sober. After a couple weeks of that, I stopped talking to my sponsor, and continued to drink and use drugs in secret. I started hanging out with other friends who didn’t know I was supposed to be sober. They drank and used drugs like I did so I was able to continue to deceive myself that I was a ‘normy’.
Inside my head I was miserable. I remember journaling during my first relapse and writing “why did I do this? I hate this feeling and have never felt so awful.” Despite knowing how horrible I felt when I relapsed, I couldn’t stop. I was physically very sick. I threw up blood because I had worn a hole in my esophagus and had to go to the ER. Despite my physical and mental decline, I still couldn’t stop and continued with my constant drinking and drug use.
When the pandemic hit, everyone was evacuated from school and had to move home. That was the final straw for me. After living a lie and convincing myself everything would be fine, once it felt like the world was ending, I gave up any effort to try and hide my problem. Moving home made it very difficult for me to continue drinking the way I wanted to. Once again, I attempted suicide. I wasn’t hospitalized because of the pandemic, but my sister was so worried about me committing suicide that she would sleep in my bed and wouldn’t let me leave her sight. My parents knew I was suicidal because of my substance use and gave me an ultimatum that if I was going to keep living with them, I had to get sober. I decided to live on my friend’s couch rather than quit. I took a bag of my clothes and left. I spent that summer sleeping on a couch, and my drinking and drug use was so bad that I would wake up in the night with withdrawals and have to drink. I wanted to quit so badly, but felt utterly powerless. Alcohol and drugs felt like the largest magnets in the world and I couldn’t stop myself from being sucked back in over and over again.
I dropped out of my second school. I was sexually assaulted while I was blacked out. It was with someone who I had been close to since elementary school. My anxiety was so bad, I stopped eating for the week after it happened and after much thought, I decided to report it to the police. Going through the process of reporting it was extremely difficult. My family was not supportive of me, we had barely spoken in months, and by this point most of my friends had distanced themselves from me because of my constant use. The family of the person who sexually assaulted me had previously been close to me for years. After I went to the police, they turned on me and went to extreme lengths to attack me legally. I felt utterly betrayed and isolated. My world had completely crumbled around me and I was at rock bottom.
I decided I was ready to get help and to get sober. I started an outpatient group for alcoholism and I took my last drink on October 4th, 2020. October 5th was my first 24 hours sober in years and it was horrible. I was white-knuckling it. I went to the outpatient group that week, but by Thursday when they asked if I could stay sober and stay safe through the weekend, I said I wasn’t sure. I was suicidal once again. They were required to call the police and take me to the emergency room to get evaluated. I wasn’t admitted to the hospital but I realized I needed in-patient treatment. At that point I was ready to do whatever it took to get sober and try to get out of this miserable state.
I was admitted to in-patient treatment the following week. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t even realize it was a 12-step treatment program and as soon as I discovered that I closed my mind off. I am so grateful now that it was, but at the time I thought I had tried that before and it hadn’t worked, so I was above it. The month in the treatment program was really difficult. I felt so isolated and lost. I fought back a lot against the treatment program during the first few weeks. I was still in a hazy state as my body was detoxing and I took out my anger at myself on the treatment center. Although in retrospect I was very lucky to be there, at the time all I did was complain – about our rigid schedule, about the food, about the lack of my cell phone and only getting one call a day. It was easier to focus on the external negatives of the circumstance than it was to look inward at myself. After a few weeks, I had opened up my mind to the 12 steps and realized what a massive impact drinking and substances had on my life. I knew I was an alcoholic with every fiber of my being. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I felt something while in treatment that I didn’t recognize – I didn’t know what I was feeling at first and then I realized what I was feeling was hope.
After leaving in-patient treatment, I knew I had to find an AA meeting. I found one in my area, found a sponsor and started going to a meeting every day. I also had day-treatment during the day. For those first several months, my whole life was dedicated to my recovery – it was how I spent all of my time. I didn’t have anyone who had been in my life from before I got sober, I was completely starting over. Because the person who sexually assaulted me was someone I went to school with, I was afraid to talk to any of my friends who knew him because he was fighting the case and I didn’t trust anyone not to betray me. In retrospect I have realized this was a gift – I needed to be completely immersed in starting a new life or I would’ve slipped back into my old ways.
Slowly, things started to get better. I realized how much I enjoyed meetings and the connections I was making through the AA Program. Even though I was the youngest person in all of my meetings, I didn’t care because I felt seen and accepted for who I was for the first time in my life. I slowly started to rebuild my relationships with my family and began to figure out who I am as a sober person. By the time I was 6 months sober, I had decided I wanted to finish my college degree and applied to transfer, once again, but this time to my local university so I wouldn’t have to leave my sober community.
I struggled with the God part of the AA Program at the beginning. I was raised religiously but it wasn’t something I connected with. My Higher Power became a conglomeration of the things in my life that reminded me I was powerless and was not in control: the forces of nature, my AA group, and all the little things that I started to notice in my life that weren’t coincidences – they were signs from my Higher Power. For example, I might be having a tough day and I will go to a meeting and the reading will happen to be about the exact thing I am struggling with. Or I will be having a wonderful day and someone in the Program will reach out who I haven’t heard from in a while needing support and I am able to help them. These are things I never would’ve noticed before I got sober, but now I realize that they happen for a reason. The more I put in the effort to talk to my Higher Power throughout the day, the closer I feel to that entity and the more I trust the ability I have to turn my will over to my Higher Power. I used to be of the mindset that if there was a God, how could bad things happen in the world? I have come to realize that life is still difficult in recovery, the difference is that through the AA Program I have been given a toolset to deal with the hardships in life and accept that there are lessons I can learn from difficult experiences.
There have been times in my sobriety when I have felt the pull of the self-pity swirl. I have felt like an outsider for being sober in my early twenties. When I begin to fall into that mindset, I remind myself of a phrase I heard in treatment, “poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.” Self-pity is the opposite of what I truly feel about being young and being in recovery. I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a beautiful program to teach me how to live at such a young age. Working through the steps has shown me all the aspects of my emotional sobriety that require work even after being physically sober. I have realized the gift of being of service to other alcoholics. Chairing meetings, staying to clean up, sharing my story, and reaching out to newcomers are truly what has kept me sober on multiple occasions.
After two years of sobriety, I have seen the AA Promises begin to come true in my life. I have incredible relationships with the people I know through the AA Program, my family is supportive of me and I have heathy relationships with my parents again after working this program. Going back to school as a sober person caused me to confront the way I used substances as an identity and has forced me to learn who I really am. I have made wonderful friends through school that are my own age and are supportive of my recovery.
I know that I am never going to be cured from alcoholism. It will always be a part of who I am. Rather than fight that like I did for years, I have learned that since I embraced the AA Program, as promised, I have been given a life beyond my wildest dreams. Regular meetings, talking with my Higher Power throughout the day, working the steps and reminding myself that I’m an alcoholic will continue to be the ways I use to stay sober. Alcoholics Anonymous has given me what I always wanted from substances – peace and freedom. It has given me my life back, and for that I am eternally grateful.
I used to think that being young and facing a life without substances was the worst possible future. I didn’t understand the ways that sobriety could improve my life. I am no longer numb or suicidal. I no longer wake up with extreme anxiety and a bad hangover or strong cravings. I am able to experience the beautiful moments in life and actually remember them and be present for them. In the beginning of my sobriety, I couldn’t bear to think about living the rest of my life sober – the only thing that got me through was taking it one day at a time. Now, I can’t imagine my life without Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t think I would still be alive if I hadn’t gotten sober. No matter your age, being part of Alcoholics Anonymous will help you feel seen and understood. It will help you learn how to embrace life on life’s terms, and it will help you feel free from the dark cloud of alcoholism that has been weighing you down.