CourtneyAM

So this is it. This has to be it. I'm saying it, I don't know if I believe myself. And I surely know I can't trust me with a drink as far as I could throw a house. My dad always used to say that. And it turned out it was true on so many different levels. I want to say that alcoholism and addiction runs RAMPANT through my family. I don't even know if rampant is a strong enough word. My Pa, was a shine runner back in his day. Served several years in prison, and ended up dying at an old age of a ruptered stomach. He would give us jars of moonshine and tell us to take a spoon full when we were ill. That mess will burn anything right out of ya. My grandfather and grandmother are raging alcoholics. Break every bone in your body and fix yourself a drink when you get home sort of drinkers. My grandmother has developed diabetes from her addiction. She changes her diet yet contines to get obliterated daily. My grandfather has two brothers. One who is still practicing addiction, the other is recovering from a liver transplant. My Uncle, an alcoholic and a heroin addict has been in recovery and actively attending AA for almost seven years. He also suffers from Hep C. My father, well he didn't dip into the using pool. He chose to deal it. His sister, the bulemic. My mother an anorexic. My sister, an anorexic. And me, the drug fiend. This cycle obviously has to end. It's spread from generation to generation. On either side of the family tree. I remember the first NA convention I ever went to. I was 14 and I went with my mothers cousin. Her mother, I witnessed being taken out on a stretcher in our daycare when I was seven years old fro a drug overdose. It's never ended. And who else is left but me to stop it? I could only rely on myself, and now I can't even do that. I had to write this to make it more real for me. I have to see it written down instead of just replaying it in my head. That the ties of addiction are so strong that my grandmother who saw her alcoholic father kill her mother and then kill himself, still chooses to choke down a bottle every night. And here I am, seeing so much misery and turmoil in my family and home, and I still choose to do the same damn thing that has and will end all of our lives. It's insane. It's beyond my comprehension, my will power, and every last sane thought that has ever run through my head. I know how do stop, but how do I stop it? It makes no sense. I know how to not drink, but I can't stop drinking. I'm so afraid right now. For myself and for the people I love. I keep telling myself that I'm so young and I have every day in front of me. Every day to stop drinking. But every day always turns into the next. And I'm still drunk. I despise this part of me, which has in some way become every part of me. I just need to know I can do this. I know like every other addict how clear my choices are. Jail, institution, or death. I've already been through two, and I've only got one left to go. I can't go there.

I appreciate all of you. Even though I don't know you personally. Your struggle is my struggle and I'm committed to breaking this cycle.

Courage to change the things I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference.

shaktee

And the courage and the wisdom to ask for help.

chip

We're here for you CourtneyAM It takes courage to make a change.

CarolD

Action time

earthnocentric

I wonder if we're cousins'

my family tree is just about as adicted.

Have you been to any 12 step meetings?
Do you have a copy of the Big Book?
Do you have a sponsor?

You mentioned "choosing" and then "insane".Well you're actually on to something there.I was so confused for so long about why I could'nt stop drinking and using EVEN THOUGH I WANTED TO STOP. Eventually I met another hope to die alcoholic in A.A. who was free; who had recovered.He showed me in the Big Book the description of the alcoholic, where we had lost the power of "choice" in drinking,how when it came to drinking we were "insane".

Once I conceded my own lack of power to choose to stay sober once and for all, I felt doomed, hopeless. But that proved to be the perfect state to be in because it prepared me for the remaining 11 steps in which I have been recovered and restored to sanity.