Hello everyone.

This is my first time posting on this forum, or any other place that has to do with the 12 step program. I haven't yet been to a meeting because I'm scared I guess. I'm scared I wont be accepted there. I'm scared of.. I don't know what?

Let me tell you about myself first, and why I hesitate. See, I've had problems with both drugs and alcohol. I used to be a crackhead, and I quit cold turkey, but I definitely started drinking after I quit the crack, and my drinking quickly escalated. This is a pretty complicated story but I'll try and keep it simple as possible. I was quit crack cocaine in late 2003 and began drinking heavily maybe 2-3 times a week from early 2004. I did go through times when I didn't drink that much, and I don't believe my body was physically addicted to alcohol, this is what makes me question if I'm an alcoholic. Do you have to be physically addicted to be an alcoholic?

Anyway, around late 2006 I began getting depressed about my drinking and wanting something to change. I was getting tired of the consequences. Days spent hungover, the effects on my body, and especially, the blackouts-

-Thats another thing, I blackout EVERY time I drink. Even if it's only 2-3 glasses of wine and I'm not that "drunk" at the time, I still black out.

The way I feel waking up the next day and having only a vague memory of what I did the night before, even if I didn't do anything "bad" really hurts me. I always remember myself yelling and laughing really loud, acting stupid and crazy, and it never feels like "me". Its like flashing back to someone elses life, someone I don't like.

Everyone I knew at the time drank. A lot. These were the only "friends" I had. Thats all anyone does here where I live. I partied with these people but they never felt like friends. It got more and more depressing. I was pulled over driving drunk TWICE, and was SO lucky not to get a DUI. I truly felt like it was the grace of God that somehow I got this second chance. The last time this happened, I'd had 10 beers, I was caught driving at 80mph down a country road at 1am, I was slurring my words, and the cop let me go with just a speeding ticket. I guess I maintained my composure pretty well, but it was a major wake up call for me.

Not long after that I decided I wanted to change my life. I did this by basically shunning all my former friends and moving to a different town about 30 minutes away. My boyfriend at the time did drink but he didn't have the problems I did, he was always the I can have just one drink type, or sometimes he would go to parties and remain sober (something I CANT do, being around drunk people while sober is just miserable for me). Well he moved with me and remained sober with me while I was there, but we ended up breaking up.

I was sober about a year, then he moved out and I was on the rebound. I had been battling with some health problems that had effected my looks (Long story short I have celiac disease and I get skin reactions from it) but after they were properly diagnosed I began healing and got my looks back. I felt strong and empowered. I was a 26 year old woman with the world ahead of her. I wrote the first draft of my first novel (still workin on it), I made plans to travel to places in the world Ive always wanted to see, I was sober, healthy, movtivated.. everything was good.

Thats when everything crashed down.

It started when I got a new job at a restaurant. It never really felt "right there". Its hard to explain but the people always made me feel wary. At the same time I was living in a town where I knew no one and my boyfriend had moved out and I was sort of bored and wanted to fit in. I didn't really like the people there. I'm very motivated and spiritual and just.. a different type of person. Now understand, I don't mean to judge anyone. I'm NO ONE to judge anyone. But these people, in my opinion were not really good people. I think most of them are alcoholics but it's more than just that. They (the men) were pretadors. The type of men who get girls messed up and use them when they are not of their right mind, that sort of thing. Just.. fake friends, you know?

They asked me to party a lot, for awhile, and I would resist. I would go home, watch tv alone every night, sleep, work on my book, call family, etc. But after awhile, I began getting bored. I was on the rebound from my ex and I missed having male attention (a big issue of mine). I felt left out of everything. I felt angry that everyone else gets to drink and party and I'm not supposed to?? The memories of my bad hurt from my drinking days of the past was fading.

So one day one of the guys at work said he could get ecstasy. I had done ecstasy a couple times, long ago, like 10 years ago, and never found it particularly addictive so I thought what the hell. I bought some, and did some at my house alone one night. It felt so good. Two weeks later, I had a party at my house. I drank. For the first time in a long time, I drank. I had lots of people over. We did ecstasy together on top of drinking a lot. I don't even know how it happened, but before I knew it, I was having sex with two of the guys. Then another guy joined in. At the time, I felt "loved" (so distorted). I thought we all were sharing this magical experience. They had sex with me for hours. It felt so amazing and continued to feel amazing until we began coming down probably at 7am the next morning. When the guys began sobering up, they looked at me with a look of disgust and quickly left my house. I was left alone, coming down and hung over. My body was covered in bruises from the way we all were having sex. (sorry to be graphic) I was torn and bleeding "down there". My body had bite marks all over it. I was severely damaged and felt like a prostitute.

This event, believe it or not was not a bottom for me. I began doing ecstasy even more and having sex with some of these same guys, who continually treated me like a whore and then left my house without even a kiss goodbye. I hit my first "bottom" (so I thought) when my dealer came over and I had sex with him for a pill. He told me he wouldn't kiss me and would only make love to me in the dark so he couldn't see me. It was one of the most degrading experiences of my life. The next day I flushed my pills down the toilet, something I was pretty proud of. But I still kept drinking. (this is the same pattern I had years ago, after my crack addiction-going from stimulants to alcohol)

The drinking continued and I still allowed myself to be used by these men for sex. Its hard to explain why. It's crazy really. I'm not the woman you would think would be this way. I'm attractive, motivated, smart, strong. I've always been told by others how confident I am, how intelligent. I have no idea how I felt into this sinkhole of low self worth and abuse and drinking, but it all became one big intertwined mess for me. I had to go to work each day with the people I'd been drinking and having sex with and it was fairly obvious I was known as "the whore" of the workplace. The negative energy and the way those people treated me just made me feel like "screw it, I have no worth, I should just drink some more!" It was such a startling slippery slope. I fell so far so fast.

It all came to a head last weekend. One of the girls from work (also an alcoholic-she comes to work still drunk from the night before every day and throws up in the trash cans in the back) threw a party. I went. I began drinking and things escalated fast. I don't really fully understand what happened as I said I black out. All I remember was that girl telling me she liked this guy at the party, and me thinking I was going to go talk to him for her, to get him to come over and talk to us. Well, flash from there, to me HAVING SEX WITH HIM in a car outside!!! :( I don't even know his name and I pray to God I'm not pregnant or anything. Well after that I came back inside and was falling all over everyone, trying to make out with all the guys, just basically being the complete wasted girl of the night. I ended up hooking up with another guy we both worked with, and this guy, I didn't know it but the girl whos party it was had a big crush on him. She got psychotically mad at me, there was screaming, and I got out of there early the next morning, terrified. I couldn't believe I'd done it again. I hooked up with two guys in one night. This girl I worked with wanted to kill me. I was sick as hell and probably had borderline alcohol poisoning (Id drank 2.5 bottles of wine and I'm a 110 pound girl).

I drove home and spent a few days in a complete depression. I called the job and told them I wasn't coming back. I just can't. Its become a completely toxic environment for me. When I went in to get my final paycheck, I was met with dirty looks and whispers and people coughing "whore" under their breath. It hurt, not because I care what they think, but because I know I'm not really a whore. Sober me is a strong, good person.

So I'm sharing all this because I want to start really learning to recover. I hate alcohol. It turns me into the worst I could possibly be and it breaks my heart, how I could be such a good person worthy of love and drink and allow myself to be around people who would harm me so much. All the people I've met through drinking only wish to use me for sex and get me to drink with them.

So my question is, am I an alcoholic? I don't get shakes or anything when not drinking, and I can go long times between drinking but when I do drink, I ALWAYS black out, I ALWAYS act in extremely compulsive and destructive ways, I ALWAYS drink to extreme amounts and get wasted/vomit, and I always go back to drinking after a certain amount of time. My trigger is that I want to socialize with people and I've never met people who don't drink, who aren't like, super religious (I'm spiritual but I'm not a Christian and my religion if I have one is sort of personal, hard to explain, but I wouldn't fit with a church or anything). It always feels like after awhile of nothing bad happening I'm okay to "try" drinking again. But the consequences of this recent relapse were so terrifyingly severe compared to any time I've drank in my past, it makes me scared to think what could happen if I ever relapsed in the future.

I have no support system to help me beyond my parents and one friend of mine (he drinks too but is willing to keep it away from me and hang with me sober). All my other "friends" keep trying to convince me I DONT have a problem and I don't like that. I told them everything that happened and they say things like "You don't have a problem, you are just a fun party girl!" or "You just like sex, thats cool!" It hurts me, it makes me feel like they just want to get me to drink too so they can use me like everyone else.

So thats my story. It's led me to here. I've quit my job and am back to working on my writing. I also plan to get out of the country in January sometime, on a sort of spiritual quest, I'm going to Thailand to see temples and hike to waterfalls, meditate, maybe study Buddhism a bit..just a general "finding myself" quest, but I wanted to connect with other alcoholics and see if I can find some support for working on myself before I leave. I want to find help about where to go from here.

Do you think I should find a meeting? I've never been and I'm nervous. Do I fit the mold of "an alcoholic" that would go to these meetings? Do you think I should start reading about the steps and working on them? I have so much shame, so much fear, so many issues, I don't even know where to start!

Thank you if any of you guys read my story!(I know it was so long! lol) Much love to anyone else dealing with these sorts of struggles.