JACS Library - Our Stories

JACS: Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others

JACS LIBRARY - OUR STORIES

My name is A. and I'm an alcoholic. I am 35 years old, married, and trying to get pregnant with my first child. I have one stepson who lives with his mother. I am a convert to Judaism, and have Alcoholics Anonymous to thank for leading me to G-d and eventually to Judaism.

I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My father is an alcoholic whose disease was out of control during the years I was growing up. My mother was actually crazier than he was from years of trying unsuccessfully to control him.

It was a very chaotic place to live. They yelled, screamed and cursed at each other all the time, and my father often became violent when they fought. I was more fortunate than many - I was never beaten or molested; I never had to go without any of the material things I needed because of my father's drinking. Still, it was a lonely and frightening existence.

You would think that someone who grew up in such a mess would be afraid to ever touch alcohol or other drugs. Unfortunately, I was just the opposite - I believed it could never happen to me. I knew too much. I had seen it all, and I would never go down the same road as my father. Wrong.

I started experimenting at around age 13. I used mostly marijuana for a long time, since my first experience with drinking involved an embarrassing blackout and a really bad hangover. But my marijuana use became heavier and heavier as time went by, and the alcohol found its way back into the picture.

I experimented with other drugs along the way, but in the end it was the alcohol that almost killed me.

Early on I did not see the writing on the wall. I still continued to function pretty well and got top grades in school. By the time I got to college at age 17 I was drinking heavily; by my third year I had almost flunked out of school and was getting drunk daily.

So, I decided to fix that problem - I dropped out of school to drink full time. I got a job which only required me to show up and continue to breathe, and I proceeded to try and drink myself to death.

When I was 23, I had hit bottom. I had no life. I had no friends. I had cut myself off from my family. I was falling apart physically. And I certainly knew nothing of G-d. I became suicidal. The funny thing is that it was my depression and low self-esteem that kept me from killing myself - I felt like such a failure that I was afraid I would botch it if I tried suicide and would end up living but being a vegetable or something.

I had been exposed to AA briefly a few years earlier, but at that time I only went to a few meetings for someone else and never took it seriously. On March 1, 1985, at age 23, I went back to AA to give it a real try. And I had decided that if it did not work, I WOULD kill myself. Thank G-d, I have been sober ever since.

In AA, I went from being an atheist to have a deep and abiding belief that G-d had saved me from insanity and/or death. I looked to G-d for guidance every day. But I guarded my relationship with him jealously. I had rejected organized religion years ago and had no intention of letting anything or anyone come between my and the G-d of my understanding. However, as I grew in recovery I began to long for the community of organized religion.

I got some of that from AA, but I really started to want to go deeper into the spiritual aspects of G-d that I could really do in that setting. That is when I discovered Judaism. I had always been attracted to Jewish people; I had had several Jewish friends and had dated 3 or 4 Jewish men (no small feat where I live). I started to look more closely at what I had learned from them, and before long I knew I had found my spiritual home.

Today, I am grateful to be sober, to be Jewish, and to be blessed with a wonderful (Jewish) husband and stepson. I am looking forward to having a child of my own, and I am trying to learn all I can about Judaism in order to pass it on to my children). Even though I studied several years prior to my conversion, I still feel that I know so little! I have noticed that people take for granted how much they learned just by attending Sunday School for 13 years - I missed all that! Anyway, I am growing every day. My biggest apprehension about becoming a parent is my fear that I will pass alcoholism to my children, but I know I have to leave that in G-d's hands.

Well, I am sorry for writing a book. I promise my future postings will not be so long. I look forward to corresponding with all of you. Shalom, and keep comin' back!