Updated June 09, 2015.

When I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1991, I walked through for all the wrong reasons. I always thought I knew so much (like everything) and found out how little I knew.

I was overwhelmed with my own self-center coolness. I thought I was "different." I was different alright -- my face, my hair, my eyes, my hands, everything on the outside was different. However everything on the inside was the same.


I don't know why I started drinking but I know why I continued. I liked to get high. Somehow I managed to graduate from a Catholic school (which my mother sent me to after the death of my brother who died from an overdose of Heroin in 1969) and moved from a very small border town to the Big City with this guy. We got an apartment and both got jobs.

A Predictable Course

Life was not bad. I drank socially and did drugs occasionally. The first thing I learned when I came to AA that Alcohol was a disease. It was primary, progressive, it ran a predictable coarse, chronic and fatal. And when I looked back that was very clear to me.

After so many days, weeks, months or years, I'm not quite sure when because unfortunately the disease did not let me know what phase I was in, I was drinking everyday using drugs just to feel normal.

Drinking Never Stopped

I was in my second relationship at this time and with my first baby boy. All I could really remember was I wanted to be a good mother so bad and my son was so beautiful.

I managed to stay off drugs but drinking never stopped.

About the time my son was 6 months old I started using heroin. I was in love with this drug and loved how it made me feel and not feel at the same time again the beginning was fun but one year later it was a nightmare.

I had another child, a girl and this time, and the state stepped in and took this child due to me being totally strung out. Her father's sisters family took her to give her a future. I was sad until I got home and started drinking and my so-called friends convinced me I was doing the right thing and of course that's all I needed to hear.

Nine Months in Jail

Things got worse and for the next three years I spent alot of time in and out of jail. In 1990 I was arrested for petty theft and spent time in jail and camps. I also had another child, a girl, with my third boyfriend (all boyfriends were alcoholics and drug addicts) The first child lived with my sister second with her aunt and now third with her grandmother and father.

I spent nine months in jail and swore I would not ever drink or use again. I thought all I needed was a job, someone to give me a chance. I got out and stayed sober for about a week that was the longest most boring week I had ever experienced.

I Wanted What They Had

I was drunk and using by the end of that week. I had attended an AA meeting when I was in jail and I wanted what they had. I was attracted to the program and where they were in their lives after sharing with us my story. I never forgot that.

A month later I took my daughter and went back home to the border town where I was born and entered a rehab and started going to meetings. It was tough. Living life on life's terms and having to do everything sober for the first time was scary.

Had to Learn How to Do Everything

My first visit to a department store was scary I was so uncomfortable I did not know how to shop. In the past I went to a department store to any store to steal not buy anything. Everything was new and different. I had to learn how to do everything a new way all over again (humble).

I thought I knew everything and found out how I knew nothing and my reasons for wanting to go to a rehab and meetings to get my family back and a job and apartment and car -- and oh! how I could go on -- changed. I'm so glad that my sponsor helped me to slow down and keep it simple.

Miracles Have Happened

All I had to do was not pick-up one day at a time. I have managed to put together, by the grace of God, 10 years. The miracles that have happened to me in the past 10 years are great.

My two older children never came to live with me but I have a wonderful active relationship with them. My baby daughter, who is now 10, lives with me and I have a boyfriend who is also in recovery. Life is good.

And I owe it all to AA.

-- Mary B

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