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I went to my first AA meeting ten years ago this month. I remember not being able to admit to being an Alcoholic at that meeting. On the way home I popped into the Off Licence. I wanted to get drunk; I always drank for the effect never the taste but I did go to another meeting the next evening. And I continued to go to lots of meetings and do some of the things that were suggested. I also continued to relapse never getting beyond 90 days' sober.

I saw women in the rooms with a book full of phone numbers. I wanted that! To have all those contacts and be so popular. Of course I never rang any of the numbers I was given, before picking up that first drink. After a few months, a woman who was about 17 years' sober told me "AA isn't something to play with", that the" yets" would happen unless I stopped drinking. Of course, I thought I knew better.

Fast Forward two years. Alcoholism is a progressive illness. I'd lost my driving licence, was experiencing blackouts and drinking more and more. I thought sleepers, tranquillizers and booze made a nice cocktail. Overdoses and ER visits started. I'd stopped going to AA and didn't go back until January 2002. Why did I go back? By now I had switched my drinks to vodka and a three day binge had left me with a pain along one side of my head. I thought I might die. It was fear rather than any desire to stop drinking and stay stopped that took me back to the rooms. Needless to say I managed 90 days and then picked up again. I continued to drink for another five months. My drinking progressed too; any time of the day or night, borrowing money, funding it any way I could. All alone, my only companions were the ghostly images that crawled out of the skirting boards, the walls and the ceiling.

Eventually I got into a residential program after a few false starts. Here in the UK we have primary and secondary treatment programs. I completed my primary treatment and went where I was told to go for my secondary program. But it didn't seem right for me. I was desperate to sort out various things still going on in my Life so I left the program. I told myself I didn't want to drink. But of course I did drink - another 3 day vodka binge. Full of remorse, shame, terror and fear, I pleaded with my local drug and alcohol team to find me another program. They did and I stuck it out for the full three months. It was tough. It was hard core and for much of the time I was the only alcoholic amongst crack and heroin addicts; not a prescription pill addict in site. When I graduated, I moved to a new town having discussed after care and a way forward with my counsellors. I arrived at a hostel for the homeless with my possessions in bin bags. I went to an NA meeting that night as there wasn't an AA meeting. This time, I did what I had been told. I put my recovery before everything else. I planned my day and week around meetings. I got a home group and a temporary sponsor. I started to work the steps with her.

Fast Forward to 2008. One day at a time I have remained sober. I have a place to live and although I don't have many material things, I do have what I need. And I appreciate everything I have got; my freedom and independence, choices, a daily program for living using the tools of AA. I wake up sober knowing exactly what has happened the previous night. I have been able to help others by sharing my E,S,H. I am able to face Life on Life's terms and be a useful and (fairly) productive member of society! I have learnt that AA = altered attitude, namely my own, that every action has a consequence and that I am responsible for my recovery. I wouldn't swap my worst day in sobriety for a day when I was drinking. I never thought I could get sober and stay sober. I have, one day at a time through AA, the direction of my Higher Power and the support of my recovery friends. It really is a miracle.