"I grew up in a great family environment. A loving, caring mom with patience of gold. A dad who loved me, played sports with me and taught me many things. They always made me feel safe. Growing up I was always the athletic type and always enjoyed playing sports and being around them. I can remember from a younger age starting to develop immense and irrational fears and used obsessive rituals to control them. Thoughts of loved ones dying, being kidnapped, losing my talents, giving people disease or bad luck, becoming paralyzed or sick would be solved with continuous habitual rituals such as checking the bathroom and my room in the exact same order, touching things exactly 5 times, not touching people or pointing at them, saying prayers the exact same way, checking the house top to bottom over and over again before leaving the house. This caused me tremendous stress, confusion and anger. I also was always so concerned with how people seen and portrayed me. I always felt like I was being judged and that I wasn't good enough or didn't truly belong. It got to the point that even playing sports was no longer fun for me I would be in the batters box worried what the people in the crowd thought of how I looked or the ball I just let go by or on a partial break in hockey suddenly struck with worry about how I looked in the crowd, I felt trapped and a prisoner to my own mind.

The voices in my head grew and became stronger and stronger. I found alcohol around the age of 14 and from the first time it had quite the effect on me. It allowed me to fit in and be a part of no matter where I went and most importantly it shut of these voices and feelings that had been tormenting me and allowed me to be part of. I never drank normally I started and couldn't usually stop until I blacked out and passed out. I found hard drugs at age 20 that helped me to avoid passing out and allowed me to keep drinking the way I would. It wasn't long before I realized I had a big problem on my hands and I realized that these things were no longer working for me. They used to help and now they were a temporary escape with grave side effects becoming less and less effective and causing more problems and amplifying the ones already there. I became depressed and suicidal. I tried to quit for years and could not regaurdless of how many times I said I was done and how genuinely I meant it, I kept going back. I tried many different options and resources to get sober. Living sober groups, counselors, doctors (one who I still use today who has been a great help), phycologists, multiple treatment centers and could not stay sober regardless of their best efforts.

I realize today that this is because I suffer from a disease called alcoholism and it wasn't until I went to an AA meeting on a Saturday morning that I heard the message of how I can recover from this disease. They spoke of the solution instead of complaining and whining about their problems and struggles. They used their past experiences and struggles selflessly to help me. I heard the message of how I can recover from this from someone with the same shared life experience as me and how they got through it and I became willing to do whatever it took to recover. I was given a new way of living and today I can thankfully say that I am happily sober and these feelings of past fears, anxieties, OCD rituals and depression have dramatically lessened if not completely disappeared and if they do crop up now and again I now have the tools to deal with them in a healthy way and keep them at bay. I am a sober and free person today and have a new way of living my life thanks to the actions I took and those who showed me the way and am grateful for that.

Reach out you are not alone, you matter and deserve to feel the genuine joy live has to offer. There is a way through your struggles allow yourself to experience them."