In a short while I will have been sober for five years. Even I didn't think I'd make the first year. That first year was the toughest, and I almost got drunk just before my first birthday. The pressure of knowing that a loser like me had gone an entire year without a drink was overwhelming. Fortunately, in the nick of time, it was pointed out to me by a long-time AA member that I wouldn't actually be celebrating one year's sobriety--only 365 days. This girl could buy that, and it was just enough to get me over the hump. Another important anniversary that is also fast approaching is the fact that I've not been a patient in a state mental hospital for almost five years. Does it seem like there might be a connection? You bet there is.

I'm thirty-seven years old and entered the revolving door of mental hospitals at age sixteen. In the next twenty-one years of my life I was admitted more than 100 times in six different states. This doesn't include countless jail stays. Suicide was a constant companion. I can't remember ever going more than a few months, maybe four, before being admitted somewhere. I had been told by professionals on a number of occasions that I was a classic example of an absolutely "hopeless case." I was truly institutionalized, and in those twenty-one years had been given every label the doctors could think of. I certainly had, and still have, serious problems besides alcoholism, but drinking had been a dominant part of my life since my early teens.

When I was released the last time, I didn't have much hope that I could either stay out of the revolving door or stop drinking. But I knew I was so sick of the nightmare merry-go-round of booze and hospitals that I'd be better off dead.

Instead, I found myself going to AA. I'd been on the AA program for years, but never took it too seriously. This time, however, I decided to try and get in the program instead of on it. Through the acceptance, support, and guidance of many fine people in the program, and many, many meetings, the miracle of the Twelve Steps became my miracle. I am still in awe that the program works.