I grew up in a small town with parents who stayed together all of their lives. They were good Catholics who practiced their faith by attending weekly Mass and by always helping others. We were a middle class family, depending on the local coal mines for our income as did the rest of the people in the region. From the outside my family appeared similar to all the others in the community, yet I grew into a troubled individual.
As a child, I was full of energy and curiosity. My impulsiveness caused my parents distress. Not having an awareness of manners, I would break into a conversation, at which point my mother would quickly slap me in the face and yell, "Children should be seen and not heard." This generated great anger and hurt inside of me. But, I could not express these feelings since I would get slapped again. I felt that adults did not view my feelings as being important. My curiosity also caused problems. At around the age of four, I wandered away in an attempt to discover what was over the hill. On another occasion, I explored the inside of a relative's coal furnace while dressed in a handsome white suit.
Before going to primary school, I was full of questions. My constant questioning of adults caused my mother to urge me to not bother people with questions. Her comments made me feel that I was not worth having my questions answered.
My parents--in fact the entire community--subscribed to the belief, promulgated by a charismatic priest, that parents should not spare the rod. My punishments ranged from quick slaps to the face to long beatings with a leather belt administered by my mother while she yelled. My mother acted as if she was proud of beating me; once I had to lower my pants to show a neighbor my bruises.
I remained confused and frightened. I never wanted to be bad, it just happened. Eventually in my recovery, I had to accept my childhood and forgive the people whom I was convinced had caused all my problems. I came to understand that few people are perfect. Furthermore, almost all do the best they can most of the time.
When I entered elementary school, major problems started. I could not even pronounce my last name because of a serious speech defect. I still remember my first day of school. The nun made me stand in front of the class and repeatedly try to pronounce my name. The whole class laughed when she declared, "He can't even pronounce his own name." My mother thought my poor speech resulted from stubbornness since neither she, nor anyone else in the community, knew anything about speech problems. She would cry and scream, "You're stubborn and hateful." and "I don't know what is wrong with you." These sessions, when my mother yelled about my speech were gut wrenching for me. I wanted to talk right. I tried as best as I could, yet my mother still insisted that I was not really trying, that I was just being stubborn. She repeatedly said that I embarrassed her. My speech defect was bad enough in and of itself, but when the most significant adult in my life seemingly cut her love from me, I became overwhelmed with fear and hurt. From that time on, I never felt that I could count on my mother's support or love. She became one more source of frustration; one more person who could not be trusted.
I seemed to have learning problems since I never learned to write or spell. The alphabet seemed impossible to learn. My mother was constantly drilling me on my spelling, yet I could not retain the correct spelling for long. My mother believed speaking, writing, and spelling were most important. In these subjects I was the dumbest student in the class. I seemed to be unable to take directions; I used to write notes directly on top of other notes. My older brother sailed through the same school, with the same teachers without any problems whatsoever. My parents, teachers, and neighbors often said, "Why can't you be like your brother?" or "Your brother never had a problem like that." A cousin, a year younger than I, also did well at the same school. Besides having learning problems, I seemed to always do the wrong thing at school. I was kicked out of the confirmation class for talking and was caught ripping up songbooks in the church. Eventually, I was told to leave the school for good. My constant misbehavior backed the nuns against the wall. They responded with some unprofessional acts, such as pounding my head against the blackboard. One drove my face into the edge of the desk. Needless to say, I was afraid of the nuns.
My elementary school experience left me believing that life was difficult and full of pain. I was a failure at everything I attempted. Back then, everyone else learned easily. They did not have to be scolded and physically punished constantly. I came to believe what my mother had told me so many times that I was bad and that something was wrong with me. The fact that my brother, a younger cousin, and nearly everyone else met with success in the same school with the same teachers was powerful evidence that there was indeed something wrong with me.
When I entered the ninth grade of public school, I knew only a few kids, and I experienced new distress. Not being too skilled in sports, I was not wanted on teams in gym class. In the halls, one older, larger boy bullied me. In English class I was the dumbest student. Teachers and other students could not understand my speech due to my speech defect. Worst of all, girls turned me down at dances. My ego was deflated at the first dance: besides the fact that no girls would dance with me, an older boy wanted to go outside and fight. I always attached much significance to the approval of girls. I reacted as if they were the ultimate judge of a boy's worth. Since they turned me down at dances, I assumed I was worthless.
From this time on, I suffered acutely from inferiority feelings. I did not know how anyone could like me. Everyone talked about fighting, and I was afraid of fighting. I thought, "if they only knew." Until I entered AA years later, I did not have any person to share my fear and confusion. I was separated from the kids I had gone to school with for the first eight years. I wondered about how to kiss a girl. I pondered about how to dance. As a consequence of not meeting the approval of girls, I puzzled over how to behave in order to attract them. I studied the popular boys, searching for their secrets. It seemed that they were good talkers, that they made the girls laugh, and that they liked to fight. But I just was not sure.
My parents were too busy to talk to me. My father was always smoking and drinking. Because the coal mine where my dad worked was subject to strikes and slowdowns, we were poor. My mother struggled to keep food on the table. She used to spend hours cutting around bad spots in apples which neighbors gave her in order to make pies. To go along with food from our garden and fruit trees, we ate a great deal of wild game: rabbits, grouse, fish, and woodchucks. People would catch fish then give them to us--to this day I can see a large catfish lying on our kitchen floor still breathing, hours after being caught. I grew to hate eating woodchuck. At times we ate it day after day. People shot woodchucks (because their burrows could break the legs of livestock), then gave them to us. Although my mother did not spend much time listening to me, she did provide the family with plenty of food despite our meager finances. Today, I realize that we actually ate better than most people because we ate healthy garden-grown produce along with some of the best home-made baked goods. My mother's cooking was legendary. But I never appreciated it at the time. I always focused on what I did not have, rather than what I did have.
Ultimately, I became popular by being the class clown. I figured that since so many laughed at my speech I should just go along and get attention by making people laugh. I would do stupid antics and tell funny stories. At times it was fun; however, I often felt under pressure having to be up and funny all the time. I assumed that no one would like me, if I could not keep them laughing. Making others laugh seemed to be the only thing I was good at--the only thing that was uniquely me. My friends were intelligent or superb athletes. My identity, my purpose, so it seemed, was to put a smile on other's faces. There were others in the high school, of over six hundred, who were also funny; I saw myself in competition with them. I had to be the first to make everyone laugh. I had to produce bigger laughs. On the outside I looked happy. I appeared witty and clever, yet I was driven to maintain my role as the class clown because that was my only identity. It was painful to be limited to only one side of my personality; so many times I wished to be taken seriously.
When I was a junior, I started to hang out with boys who liked sports. I played football and basketball on neighborhood pick-up teams. Since I was fairly tall and heavy, I experienced some success. I was still uncoordinated, but some moves and positions did not require much coordination, just size. I went along with my athletic friends to lift weights. Lifting weights gave me hope; for at the time, I thought girls were attracted to guys with big muscles. In my senior year, I went out for football, but quit after less than four weeks. Although big and strong, I lacked the moves that others who had been playing on the team for four or more years possessed. In Catholic school, there was no instruction or practice in football or, in fact, any other sport; the school lacked funds for anything other than chalk and perhaps a few balls. Before quitting football, I had enjoyed the respect of others and the sense of belonging which came as a result of lifting weights with the football players. When I quit, it seemed that I had lost all. I wanted to disappear when a girl who seemed to like me said in a blaming voice, "Why did you quit football?" I felt as though I had lost all value as a human being. The southwestern Pennsylvania community literally worshipped its football players. Everyone in the school looked up to them. After all, the football players would soon be sought after for college scholarships, which to our parents (uneducated European immigrants) guaranteed a lifetime of success.
Playing on the football team was demeaning for me. Being on the third string of a large team, I had to wear a uniform that was totally different from the first two teams. One of my most embarrassing times of my life was having to sit on the bench with the rest of the third team during half-time of a home game while the first two teams went inside for a pep talk. We all moved close together and tried to make ourselves as small as possible although we wore balky pads. An intoxicated man came over asking us why we did not go in with the rest of the team. That half-time seemed to last forever.
I lacked confidence and a fighting attitude. In one practice, a much smaller boy challenged me to a fight, and I backed down. That incident led me to feel that no one would ever accept me because backing down from a chance to punch someone was proof positive of fear. My friends talked endlessly about fighting, they glorified the people who were good fighters: tales of their fights were told and retold, much as myths were back in the middle ages. We all knew the stories, but loved to listen to them as children enjoy hearing their favorite nursery rhymes before going to sleep.
The brightest spot of my high school years was a relationship that developed with a girl on the school bus. We sat together every afternoon. We talked and laughed about many things. She was pretty. Although we only had one real date, the semi-formal, I felt very close to her. She gave me the feeling of acceptance. She encouraged me to chase my dream of being a writer, even though I had the lowest grades in English class. Years later, when I was going through my private hell, I would feel better knowing that at least one person believed in me. As the decades of my life rolled along, I met and got to know many people who had experienced problems similar to mine, but they went all the way down the tubes--jails, institutions, suicide. I believe that a few people, especially this girl, gave me just enough attention to keep me from going over the edge during the many dark hours of my life. At present I do a lot to help young people--my community has even given me awards for my efforts. I believe that maybe the few minutes or the kind words I give a young person might help save a life.
About the time I graduated from high school, I started to drink. Booze was magic. It removed all my fears and inferiorities. It made me relax and feel as good as anyone else.
During my first semester, I drank very little since I was fearful of flunking out. After passing all my courses the first semester, I decided to drink like everyone else. To my pleasant surprise, my grades shot up, and I made the dean's list. Booze did not have any noticeable bad effects on me for a few years: after a night of drinking I was able to get right out of bed, eat breakfast, go to class, and do all that had do be done. In addition, the booze gave me the confidence to date girls and to join organizations. I tried out for the wrestling team and eventually made the varsity team.
During these early college years, I thought I was a special person. I drank as much as anyone else, yet earned high grades and wrestled. Many of my drinking buddies flunked out of school, while I routinely had my name in the newspaper for making the dean's list. Nevertheless, a few problems occurred around booze. Once, I was badly beat up as I took on an entire fraternity. Later that same afternoon, when my roommate brought his mother to the apartment to meet me, they found me swimming in the garbage piled in the corner of the kitchen. With my face and head covered with bumps from the fight earlier in the day, I made quite an impression. That incident with the garbage was the first of an intermittent string of bizarre behaviors that followed me for the rest of my drinking days.
Girls filled a void in my life. When I was in a relationship (and there were a constant stream of them after my freshman year) I felt OK. Since I felt empty without a girl, after one relationship ended I immediately jumped into another. However, the many short-lived relationships gave me the feeling that there was something wrong with me. It seemed that as soon as a girl got to know me, she left. I tried to appear as a good catch to make up for whatever was wrong with me. Besides being on the wrestling team, I went to extremes to maintain high grades. On the other hand, I did not want to appear as an egghead, so I thought being an out-of-control drunk would make me appear easy-going and fun-loving.
Looking back, it seems that I was not too popular with girls when my drinking was only of a social nature. For a time I just went to a coffee house on weekends, studied to maintain high grades, and trained with the wrestling team. Later, when my drinking became out of control, I had many more dates. I was probably more fun to be with when I was drunk. I had observed that the best-looking girls often went for guys who drank heavily. Some girls love losers. It is amazing at how many girls love guys who beat them on a regular basis. There were even times I believed I would have more success with girls if I beat them. Our society will probably always contain a certain percentage of very sick men when there are girls who seek out abusers.
When I was a senior, I thought life was great. I had been an officer in two different fraternities and president of the biology club. I had made the wrestling team, and I was going to graduate with honors. I was even nominated to Who's Who of American College Students. I felt special. I led two lives: a scholar and an athlete during the day, but a roaring drunk at night. Most of all, my girl wanted to marry me--she even brought up the subject. All my life I worked to mold myself into the kind of person who attracted girls, and I had finally achieved success. My dominant fantasy had always been to make a girl love me enough to want to get married. At home, I witnessed how my mother took care of everything while all my dad had to do was bring a paycheck home. Providing a paycheck bestowed on my dad great privileges: he could watch the television as long as he wanted, and his wife took care of all household responsibilities. All parts of my life looked rosy.
Then, with most of my last semester over, I realized that the total preoccupation with my girl was causing my grades to fall. If I wanted to graduate with honors, I would have to spend more time on my studies. My girl did not take too kindly to the idea of my spending less time with her. After a few arguments, she gave me back my fraternity pin. I felt caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I could study to maintain my excellent grades; on the other hand, I could give up my high grades for the girl of my dreams. My predicament was resolved by a retreat into insanity.
A few weeks before graduation, I went into a big high without drinking. I exhibited classic symptoms of the manic phase of a bipolar disorder (also called manic-depression). I became lost in meaningless activity for days without sleeping. My mind sped up. I felt supreme confidence. I loved everyone. For the first time in my life, I felt as if my mind and tongue were connected, for I found it easy to talk. Furthermore, I could enjoy life all the more since I did not require sleep. I believed I had special powers. I knew what people were going to say. I thought I was able to control people--make them do anything. At the end, I was really loony; I thought I was the second embodiment of Jesus Christ. By inventing a ray gun, I was going to cause everyone to stop fighting in Vietnam. With my ray gun, I planned on destroying the moon in a fraction of a second to demonstrate my great powers. Then I was going to command everyone to put down their guns. For fraternities across the nation, I was designing a machine to recycle beer. My discussions about a beer recycling machine always drew rapt attention from my peers in the bars. Feeling benevolent and brilliant, I wanted to help everyone. As many manic-depressives do, I tried to call the White House to share my great ideas.
After hearing of my plans, a few of my fraternity brothers, who were psychology majors, took me to a psychiatrist. I was placed on a locked ward. The doctors told me I needed a rest. I was never given a diagnosis or prognosis. I could have been told that I was having an episode of manic-depressive illness and that proper medication would enable me to lead a normal life, but I was just medicated into being another of the walking dead. In the little over three weeks that I was on the ward, I took large dosages of various psychoactive drugs: Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Norpramin, Sineqan, and Valium. They calmed me down somewhat. I remained on medication for over five years.
I enjoyed my first week in the hospital. All I had to do was sit around and eat. I became fond of a girl my age, who had been there for three months. Some of the people were quite interesting. One fellow, who talked constantly, was brought in because he was mowing his grass on a Sunday at 7 a.m. in the nude. My first roommate spent all of his hours working on crossword puzzles, even when he had visitors. Another roommate was building an electronic ball that was going to be able to roll all around the building without touching anything. I thought he was very clever.
After the second week, I had uneasy feelings. I wondered when I was going to be released. Some of the patients had been there for months. Some had been in and out of other hospitals. I began pondering over what some patients had told me on my first day, "If you're not crazy when you come in, you will be when you leave." No one on staff gave me any definite answers. I got to the point where I was afraid to do anything because I thought they were always writing notes about my behavior. During my entire stay on the ward, I received no group or individual counseling. Most days my doctor would walk by and just nod to me. I was confused about why I was there. I did not think I would ever get out. I paced the halls looking out the little windows at the bright, spring sun. In order to get out, I was ready to start smoking cigarettes to calm my nerves. When a fraternity brother came to visit me, his reactions unnerved me. He kept glancing nervously over his shoulders as if waiting to be attacked. Once he said, "These guys are crazy." I thought "if they were crazy, what did that make me?"
After my release from the hospital, I went home and immediately became depressed. For over seven months, I did little but sit in a chair. During that time, I lost my girlfriend to someone else and gained a great deal of weight. I felt like such a failure. I thought I was falling behind in life, sort of how a kid feels when failing the sixth grade. I did not believe I could ever catch up with my friends. My life was full of guilt and devoid of hope. My mind was so slowed down; it seemed as though it took forever to respond to someone's questions or comments. Reading had always brought me great pleasure, yet my mind was too confused to read. By the time I got to the end of a sentence, I could not remember what the first part was about. I sat at home, watching reruns of old television programs, but could not understood the plots. For some reason, I blamed myself for my mental problems. Worst of all, I just knew that I would be like this forever. This idea of an everlasting condition was reinforced when my doctor indicated that I would be on medication for a long time, perhaps the rest of my life. I hated my medication--I felt as if it had cut away most of my brain.
The reactions of people in the community deepened my depression and confusion. Some, my parents for example, treated me as if I was invalid or a helpless child. Others who had been close friends seemed to fear me. I wanted to talk to someone about what I had been through, but no one wanted to listen. Since everyone sent messages that there was something drastically wrong with me, I eventually concluded the same. I felt that most people were putting up walls. They could not get close to me; they acted as though listening to me would make them crazy too. I'm describing the stigma of mental illness--average people and especially doctors do not understand the pain of this stigma. Our society accepts the idea that it is OK to have high blood pressure or heart disease--even if a person brought the conditions on himself with years of smoking. However, if there is a hint of something wrong with the brain, then a person is isolated from society. Why should an organ like the brain be any different than the heart or the lungs?
For months I felt useless. I could not even work in the sun due to hypersensitivity to the sunŐs rays brought on as a side effect of my medication. After I had a minor fender bender backing out of parking lot, my parents would not permit me to drive. My slowed mind would not allow me to work a job or do any activities such as reading, which filled my hours before. In my condition, I had no role in the community.
For years, my main goal in life was to be committed to a mental hospital for life or to kill myself. After formulating plans for killing myself, I chickened out, at the last moment. Not having the guts to kill myself, I felt even more worthless.
Eventually like a cold, the depression passed. I returned to college on a part-time basis and graduated. But, I still experienced problems. A little over a year after leaving the hospital, I escaped back into my illness when the girl I was dating transferred to an out-of-state college. Another hospital stay was averted by my doctor drastically increasing my medication. A few months after that incident, another depression hit. This time my psychiatrist planned to hospitalize me over Christmas vacation. At the last minute I did not have to go--the idea of going back to the hospital apparently shocked me into sanity.
There were many periods upon my return to college that my drinking was out of control. Frequently, I would get drunk, break down doors, kick holes in walls, and beat up my friends. I did not remember any of these violent episodes the next day. My alcohol consumption went way up. Instead of going half with someone for a case of beer, I went half on a quarter keg. Once I had to be taken to the emergency room for vomiting blood. To help defray the cost of my drinking, I sold beer to underage fraternity brothers on credit. I was very business-like, making my brothers sign contracts for beer credit. Ultimately, I reached the point of passing out at all parties. Near the start of one party, I passed out in front of the bathroom door, thereby forcing everyone to climb over my giant body to get to the bathroom. What really bothered me at the time was that I could not hold onto a relationship for very long. After a few dates during which I showed my best side, I would lose control and do something stupid or disgusting which would cause the girl to leave and never return. One night, I rolled down the steps onto my date, just about breaking her ribs. There were many other gross, vile incidents that I am too embarrassed to put into print.
I would have done anything to get high. When the bars announced the last call for drinks, I would purchase seven to nine shots of various distilled spirits, and have them mixed in a water glass. After drinking them, I would order another series. At that point someone at the bar would usually yell, "This guy is a real man, I'll buy him another." Of course, the mixtures made me sick for the rest of the night, but I repeated this insane behavior over and over. Once, I spent an entire weekend cooking the skins from twenty pounds of bananas since it was rumored that smoking the final concoction would make you high. I got mostly A's in chemistry because I thought that a thorough knowledge of chemistry would permit me to synthesize my own supply of LSD. At my college there were few drugs at first. As soon as I could, I tried pot a few times--but with mixed results; consequently, I stayed with drinking because it consistently made me high. Throughout college, I took caffeine pills every three hours, all day long. For a while I drank a gallon of ice coffee within an hour of awakening. Boy, was I awake. This practice was perhaps what tipped me over the line into insanity.
Strangely enough, I felt sad for graduating with honors, for I assumed that the stress of working for high grades had contributed immensely to my nervous breakdown. Likewise, my other college honors gave me little pride. All the honors had cost too much.
Because my psychiatrist advised me to not accept a teaching job even if I was offered one, I cooked hot dogs in a restaurant in my college town. Many people who knew me would stand outside and point me out to others explaining that I used to get high grades. They probably thought I represented proof for the uselessness of studying. A year later, I landed a teaching job out-of-state and married the girl who was to give birth to our son four months afterward.
At this time I saw my nervous breakdown as the absolute worst event that could befall anyone. In time alcoholism proved to be far worse.
During the first three years of my marriage, I lost just about everything good in my life. Besides frequently vomiting, I wet the bed. My weight grew to three hundred pounds--a gain of over one hundred pounds. Seemingly overnight, I became the fattest person I had ever known. Becoming fat was a terrible blow to my self-esteem. Throughout my teen years I thought I was ugly, so I tried to keep my body in good shape to balance out my homely looks. I had finally done it; I had made myself completely unlovable. Not wanting others to see my obesity, I wore my pants under a huge beer belly. Hiding under the great belly was a fifty-inch waist. Bending over in the morning to tie my shoes was an ordeal, especially when I was sick from the previous night's drinking. To make matters worse, I would sometimes tie my shoes before I put my pants on; consequently I would have to undo my shoes, don my pants, and tie my shoes once more. Even though I was just out of college, I looked old. There are not many attractive styles of clothes in the fifty-inch waist size. Wearing a poor style of clothes combined with low slung pants resulted in my crotch being at knee level. Two decades later such outfits came into style, but they were certainly not in style when I was wearing them. As with many other corpulent people, I always had large sweat stains under my arms. On warm days, salt from my sweat formed concentric, tree-ring type designs on my shirts.
There were a number of causes for my dramatic weight gain. Heavy doses of antipsychotic medicine certainly slowed my metabolism. My attitude, however, caused much of the weight gain. I subscribed to the view that alcoholics have poor health only because they do not eat. Not wanting that to happen to me, I made it a point to eat a great deal. Heavy eating came easy. All my life, I received attention for my appetite. For many years, the only compliments I received from my mother concerned my large appetite and chubby appearance. My mother believed that getting lots of delicious food on the table was a mother's most important role. She probably took a great deal of pride in her ability to feed the family so well--despite the fact that we were poor. In my perverse way of thinking, I thought that if I could eat more than you, I was better than you. I never felt any sensations of fullness; therefore I just ate until everything was gone. I always ate until I could hardly move. Then, I would feel guilty and plan a diet. The diet only worked in my mind; I forgot my diet plans when I got hungry. I proved the notion that drinking beer tends to cause a beer belly--I drank a lot of beer and developed an immense belly.
The ambitious, successful guy from college was gone. My spirit and dreams were broken. I wanted to die. I nearly lost my driver's license due to speeding tickets. My car crashes were so common that it seemed that I drove the car off the road as often as it snowed. There was no good in my life. The booze had stolen my soul. Each day was the same: I would drag myself off to work, come home, then pass out in front of the old black and white television that someone had given us. Slowly, booze had taken away everything that I enjoyed. No longer did I read, bowl, or exercise. I had nothing to look forward to in the future. I was certain that the best of my life was over. I wanted to die. I was angry at God for not killing me in a wreck or with a lightning strike. For months on end, I daydreamed about my funeral, eulogy, and obituary. I felt all alone. No one had my problems. There was not a single person on earth with whom I could share my worries. The most terrifying event was that my best friend--alcohol--was failing to make me happy. The old days when a few beers would lift me above all problems and stimulate my mind were long gone. For years I tried different combinations of beer, wine, and distilled beverages, desperately searching for the shot of courage that alcohol always gave me in the early years. At times, I exhibited bizarre behaviors while drinking. Once, I went to sleep then awoke walking in a field in the rain wearing only my underwear and my watch. Although I knocked on many people's doors asking for directions, I did not find my way back until the next morning. My drinking behavior surprised me; I had often said that I would never be as bad as my dad--I had long since passed him.
I spent much time and effort trying to get a handle on my mental problems and my drinking. I thought the two were different. Up to this point, nothing had helped me: the Catholic Church, self-help books, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, hospitalization, and medication had all failed to keep me from spiraling downward. Besides going to the sacraments, I would go to the church for visits on weekdays. Studying the book The Power of Positive Thinking and learning to use self-hypnosis caused me to feel worse, since these techniques did not work for me. I believed that these practices worked for everyone, so I thought I was at fault. I was either too sick or too stupid. I thought controlling my drinking was a matter of will power, and I had an ample supply of will power. This will power was demonstrated by me becoming a varsity wrestler, graduating with honors, and earning a fraternity record of 4,010 sit-ups. At one time, I stopped drinking for an entire college semester. This time, however, what I wanted was controlled drinking. I did not want to really stop, just be rid of the consequences of drinking. For a long time, I tried to not drink during the weekdays. That way I could do a better job at work and would have more money for drinking during the weekend. It seemed so logical. But yet it was impossible. I would abstain on Monday and Tuesday, then get drunk on Wednesday to celebrate. Each time I tried, I put my all into it, and each time I failed. Each failure made me feel that maybe there really was something wrong with me.
After many months of attempts to control my drinking, I called the local office of Alcoholics Anonymous and was directed to AA meetings. The worst of my life was over, eventually I became like a Phoenix rising up from its ashes.