I am Penny... I am an alcoholic.
My date of sobriety is the 26 July 1999. I am sober today due to the grace of God, this programme and fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I started drinking at a very young age. I believe I was born alcoholic, coming from a very large alcoholic family. From very young I was stealing alcohol from my parents', grandparents', aunts' and uncles fridges' and cupboards. I just loved the taste and it made everything seem right. My background was very dysfunctional and abusive and alcohol was the only way I knew how to cope with life and its problems. I was no longer "shy little Penny' anymore. It gave me confidence and I thought I was able to conquer the world with it.

When I was 10 years of age, my sister and I had been drinking- we were home by ourselves as usual, we thought we would have some fun by chopping the chooks' heads off and watching them fly around the yard headless. Needless to say by the time my mother got home from work we were sobered up, remorseful and in a lot of trouble. Any alcohol that went missing in our household was blamed on the aboriginals who lived at the back of us. My mother told me I would end up as nothing and be nothing, so with what I know now is alcoholic thinking I set out to prove her wrong. At nineteen I got into nursing and then topped the State just to prove her wrong.

Over this time I had joined a church and actually sobered up for a while. I didn't have any connection with a Higher Power. I married at 20 for the first time, it was soon to turn into a marriage from hell and abuse and I turned back to my only friend, Alcohol, to handle it. That friend was to lead me to kicking out my first husband and moving in with this guy who had a $20,000 wine collection and the best spirits and liquors on the market. I loved it and for the first time I could drink however I liked without having to be sneaky and trying to hide it. Life was one big party and boy! did I party and live the high life. I went on a drinking bender to Sydney from Adelaide for two weeks in 1995 and over that time the guy I had been living with organized a celebrant and marriage, I came back from Sydney still drinking and next thing I know I'm married again! The party was to come crashing down a few months later when, not only would my alcoholism escalate, but I would get addicted to narcotic painkillers and various other drugs following an accident when a semi-trailer ran through the back of my stationary car leaving me half dead and taking from me everything I had ever worked for.

My alcoholism and addiction and pain was to take me to the deepest depths of depression. No longer was alcohol taking the pain away or making me feel better about myself. My second husband never knew me any other way but as an alcoholic and he used this to his advantage especially after the car accident. He would keep me supplied with alcohol, and later on pills. I was just over four and half years in and out of psychiatric hospitals all over Australia, on every type of anti-depressant and psych drugs possible but none helped. I just needed to get sober. I didn't want to live so tried to kill myself numerous times and ended back in psych hospitals where I couldn't drink, but with my nursing background I knew exactly what type of drug would give me the effect that I desired. I manipulated this to the max. I was one very sick puppy and it was a vicious merry go round that I didn't know how to get off.

I came into AA through a rehab. in NSW. I was put there following a car accident where I had gone out at 7.00am absolutely smashed and ended up in hospital. I had numerous admissions to this hospital to fix up my suicide attempts when I was drunk and they sent me straight to this rehab. I believe to this day that this was divine intervention. The last 4 years of my drinking was living hell and I was in such a black hole that I could see no way out.

The rehab. I went to was one amazing awakening. I went there as an absolutely broken down drunk who had bankrupted herself in every way- physically, mentally, spiritually and financially. I had nothing left. As part of the rehab. we had to go to an AA meeting everynight and thank God for that! because by the time I left that rehab. numerous weeks later I knew I was an alcoholic and I had been shown hope from the members in AA. I wanted that hope. I was sick and tired of being so sick all the time. I had developed epilepsy through my drinking and was absolutely sick of the life I had been leading. The department of Community services had been talking of taking my kids from me because I had been keeping my eldest daughter home from school to look after the baby. I had had enough. I just surrendered.

In AA I was told the 'HOW' of it. I was told I had to get Honest with myself and others, I had to be Open to this programme, and I had to be Willing to put the Steps into my life if I wanted to change... if I wanted the hope that others had in these meeting rooms. I kept coming back and I did this. I did the suggested things... get a home group, sponsor, do service, etc. I left my marriage at 5 months sober because my husband didn't like me being sober so I put my sobriety first and came back to my home state of Western Australia. I haven't looked back and thing have got better.

Today I have Higher Power in my life who I call God. My life has changed beyond anything I ever imagined or dreamed of. By working the Twelve Steps of AA in my life and practising these principles in all my affairs, I have been given a new life. I have peace and serenity today that I never knew before I came into AA. I have remarried in the fellowship and have a wonderful partner who works his own programme as I work mine. I live a contented life with my children, being involved in their schooling and upbringing to the fullest extent. This is what sobriety has given me, that I didn't have before. I have peace of mind where I am no longer fighting my own head or others.

I have learnt today about grace , about the power to change if we just do the simple things... that is don't pick up a drink one day at time, put the Steps into my life and things can and will get better. If my Higher Power can do it in my life He can do it in anyone's. I was taught very early on in sobriety-"SURRENDER TO WIN". Miracles do happen.

 

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