CaseyW

I come from a long line of alcoholics on both sides of my family. My dad has been sober since 1983. My mom's dad was sober for over 30 years when he died in 2014. Almost all of my aunts and uncles could be described as alcoholics and/or addicts. My mom abused prescription pills from my early teenage years until the day she passed away. My dad met my absolutely wonderful step-mom at an AA group in 1990. (She's not an alcoholic but was running the Alateen program there for children of alcoholics as she grew up in a house filled with recovery as well.)

But all that being said, I really don't remember alcohol being around at all as a child. My dad sobered up when I was eight. He's never really told me any of his drinking war stories, just the bare outline that it was bad and he's glad he sobered up. But I don't remember him drinking at all. There are some childhood photos of me sitting on his lap while he has a can of Coors in his hand.

Lots of memories of the wreckage that my mom's addiction and mental issues caused because most of them happened when I was 13-15 years old. She never drank--in fact she hated alcohol because of her memories of her own dad's drinking during her childhood--but she was a very smart woman who spent her life working in pharmacies and doctor's offices so she knew how to con the system into getting her whatever prescriptions she wanted.

I spent a lot of time around AA clubhouses as a child because of my dad and granddad so have heard all the recovery phrases and cliches for almost my whole life. Sometimes I thought every single item in our house had been decorated with the phrase "one day at a time" or the serenity prayer.

I actually didn't take my first drink myself until I was 24 years old because I had always heard that alcoholism is genetic and I didn't want to go down that road. But once I did finally start drinking, I would say I was drinking alcoholically within six months if not sooner. It was an instant feeling of "this is what I've been missing my whole life."

I've known I needed to stop drinking since summer 2002. I would guess that growing up around so many recovering alcoholics made me a little more aware of my situation than normal but it also may have made sobering up a little harder as I've found I just can't fully commit to the program of AA and that's how most of my relatives sobered up.