Hi family! I'm Leah, alcoholic, and glad to be here.

Like many of us, I used to feel as if I was different from everyone. When I found alcohol at 23, I was suddenly the same as everyone. I finally belonged. This state lasted for a few years until my love (alcohol) turned on me and I became afraid of everything, then eventually terribly paranoid. When I went into treatment, I felt different, too. I didn't want to go. The only emotion I felt was anger and resentment. When I got out of there after about seven months, I went to meetings, but still wanted to drink, so I did. I finally had a moment of clarity where I saw that if I kept drinking I was choosing death, so I flushed the rest of my alcohol down the toilet. I prayed as if there was a Higher Power and finally found One, whom I gradually believed loved me. But I still felt I didn't truly belong. True, I knew these AA people were like me, something I had never found before, but I just couldn't quite make that leap of faith and ask a woman to take me through the Twelve Steps. I see now that I never had that cornerstone in my foundation. Fourteen years later, I relapsed. I was on the program, not in it. I had let self-pity get the better of me. I finally decided I really wanted IN the program and found a hands-on sponsor who started me through the Steps. I had to call her every day and meet with her often. It was really different, and I loved it. Unfortunately, we had a parting of the ways. But I've found another hands-on sponsor who is exactly what I need, and I am excited. In the past nine months, I feel I have come to belong in a way I never have in my life before, and it's all due to God, to AA, to you folks, and to my sponsor.

Thank you all for letting me share. God bless!