My name is Stacy and I am an alcoholic.

I am sober today because I became willing to do the complete opposite of what I had always believed to be true. My first AA meeting was on July 4, 1983, and my last drink was on October 17, 2002. I guess this could be an example of a defiant individual running her life on self will. I was unable to accept spiritual help. I lost myself in my alcoholism. I became someone I wouldn't have wanted to know. I drank my way through anything that could have ever possibly meant anything to me. If anything got in the way of my drinking it had to go. I lost many years to drunkenness and institutions. Today, my life is nothing like it was when I was drinking. I care today. I have friends, family, I am back in college to finish what I started many years ago, I have a job that I do the best I can do when I am there, I am learning to be a responsible, contributing member of a society that I hated for years. All of this has been made possible because I became willing to believe in a God of my understanding and I was willing to do what I am told to do by those who have been where I am. I go to AA, I have a sponsor that I trust, I read the Big Book and I work the steps as outlined in the Big Book. I allow people to love, support and believe in me until I am able to do these things for myself. I believed that I was beyond help and hope. Today if I continue to take a set of actions contrary to what I believe to be true I have hope.