Out of Control

 

My binge drinking began in high school, and with it, blackouts and promiscuous sex.  I brought hard liquor in Gatorade bottles to school dances and hooked up with boys in darkened hallways.  I lost my virginity to a guy I barely knew at a house party.  When I woke up the next morning, I hardly remembered it.

My friends and I had fake ID’s and would go out to bars. I met lots of men and had lots of casual sex.  One night as I drifted in and out of drunken consciousness, I was date raped by a man who I thought was a friend.  A few months later, it happened again.  At the time I didn’t connect the drinking with the negative episodes in my life.  I thought that everyone drank the way I did.  I was angry that my life wasn’t going as I wanted it to and that so many bad things were “happening to me.”  I felt completely out of control and weak because I could not stop drinking, and my self-esteem began to plummet.  I would seek to increase my self-esteem by getting attention from men, often with sex, but when they ultimately rejected me, I felt even worse.

When I graduated high school my drinking progressed,  and my friends began to get real lives. I remained stuck in a pattern of drinking all day, every day.  I needed help.

In recovery I have witnessed a miracle in myself.  I have been given a new life.  I am less jealous, angry, and lonely. I am present in my relationships with family and friends.  I am attracting the kind of people that I want to attract and giving back to people more than I ever could when I was drinking.

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- Amy, 19