- I did not know what sober people did all day
when they weren't drinking,
'cause that's what my entire life was.
If I wasn't drunk, I was thinking about when I could
get drunk next and if I couldn't afford it,
I was thinking about what I could do so I can go afford it.
(light piano music)
I'm Kyle and I'm an alcoholic but I haven't had a drink
in over two and a half years.
It's an absolute miracle for me because I used to drink
every single day and I'd hardly draw a sober breath.
Alcohol wasn't always the problem for me.
It actually started off as a solution.
When I was a kid, I was bullied a lot through like
elementary school and middle school.
And I couldn't really find a way to be okay with myself.
Some of my first attempts at trying to feel
right with myself was like video games and self-harm,
but they never really brought me the relief that I needed.
I remember in eighth grade I finally had a small group
of friends and they were all gonna go off after graduation
and drink beers in the forest.
I was raised with like overbearing parents,
so I was pretty nervous that I was going
to get caught and get into trouble,
but I wanted to fit in more than anything else.
I was excited and nervous and I had my first beer
and that was the only time in my life
that I only had one beer.
But the second time that I drank, it was slightly after
my parents got divorced and we got drunk
and all of the self-loathing went away.
I finally felt like I fit in with other people.
From then on, it was just like, you know,
something that I do with friends.
And alcohol had become my solution to my problems.
A little bit afterwards, alcohol's little magic
stopped wearing off as much and the depression
like started coming back again.
Eventually the alcohol made the depression worse.
I had mentioned that I had been self-harming
before and I started doing that again
and one day I tried to take my own life.
I was put in an ambulance, I was off to the hospital.
They were asking all these questions about my drinking
and I lied because it was the one thing
that had worked for me.
They put me into a psychiatric unit and my friends like
"Kyle, you might have a problem with alcohol.
"If you want to go to AA, let me know."
And I said "no, no, no, you don't understand.
"In there, I learned all this stuff about mental illnesses
"and this is what my problem is."
And I drank again that night.
I was in college at this time and I was like failing
half my classes every single semester.
And I decided like hey, I just really need
to take a semester off to kind of work on me.
And I didn't work on me, I just drank more and more
and then my dad found a new wife to marry.
And he says "all right Kyle, we're gonna move
"into our new house and you can come with us,
"but you can't drink there.
"You drink up there, you're gonna have to leave."
I got kicked out of their house and I got sent back
to live with my mom again.
And this time we're both drinking
and it's just a toxic household.
And this is probably like the lowest point of my life.
I was just making everything worse with alcohol
and I was desperately looking
for anything that would fix me.
So I'm about 24 years old and I get kicked out
of my mom's house for the first time.
And she says "okay, you have to sleep on the street
"for one day and then you could come back."
So I slept on the street for one day
and she was like "how was it?"
And I was just grumpy and I went back.
Next time she caught me drunk, she said
"okay, now you're on the streets for two days
"and then next time it's gonna be three."
And my life was completely unmanageable at this point.
I heard somebody tell me about a place
called Midnight Mission in Skid Row and he said
it was a completely free treatment program.
I had exhausted every, all my resources,
so I decided I was going to give
this Alcoholics Anonymous thing a try.
They would take you on these vans from Skid Row
to the west side of LA, which is like super rich.
Once again, I was in a room of Alcoholics Anonymous
feeling like a complete outsider and feeling like
I couldn't relate to anybody in the room.
I had holes in my teeth because of all the cavities.
I was completely sun burnt.
I was like overweight.
And I'm looking at all these people who have their lives
well put together and I'm looking
for somebody who's gonna help me.
And they would have these classes at the Midnight Mission
on like how to get a sponsor.
A sponsor is somebody that's gonna,
has been in Alcoholics Anonymous for a while
who understands what the steps are
and who's gonna help you for completely free
to try to turn your life around.
I couldn't actually ever remember feeling pure joy
because from the time when I was a kid,
to all when I was a adult, I felt like
I was maladjusted to life and I couldn't deal
with what the world was giving me.
So it was super helpful to have somebody in there
that kind of like understood what it meant
and who had been through it himself.
And as I slowly like tried to like, you know,
put the pieces back together in my life,
for some reason I just held on and I held on through it.
A little bit into my sobriety, my mother had passed away.
She actually drank herself to death.
Not everybody makes it out.
I'm grateful that the AA is there for people who need it
but not everybody who needs it gets it.
And it's one of the hardest parts because it took me
a while to like fully understand that AA was working for me.
So eventually I finally found like my people.
They're my family now.
One suggestion that was told to me is if
when you're feeling bad, turn your thoughts
to somebody else that you could help.
And it has always worked for me because that entire time
I was drinking trying to fix myself, when I trying anything
to fix myself, I could never do it.
When I started focusing on how I could best serve
somebody else, that's when my life started turning around.
That's when I was happy.
I don't speak for AA as a whole, but just like
for my personal experience with it, all my aversions to it,
like when I actually just finally gave it
like a little bit of a chance, that's when it worked for me.
I'd highly recommend anybody who thinks that they may
be an alcoholic just to go and like maybe just check out AA.
Even if you don't want to stay there, you'll always
know where it is if you ever want to go back in the future.
The Western Area Conference of Young People
in Alcoholics Anonymous is the conference that I'm on.
I was completely surprised about how many other people
like around my age were actually sober when they had
previously had terrible problems with drinking.
I always thought I was just gonna be the odd one out
with old people in a room.
But really, like I found like my best friends in there.
I found the people who I spend all my time with in AA.
I'm super grateful today because today,
I do have a job and I've had the same job
for almost two years now.
I have a place to live and I've never had my own place
to live in my entire life.
This is the first time in my life I've had that.
I have the best friends that I could tell anything to
and I get to spend all my time with.
And I have just like so much love in my life.
And I finally have peace.
I finally have serenity.
If I could go back in time, I really wish I could
have gone sooner because there could have been
so much suffering that couldn't have happened.
And I wish I just had more insight that alcohol
isn't like this big scary thing.
It's just like, okay, it's an indication
of action that needs to be done to be fixed.
(gentle music)