Jennie grew up with young parents and had a disadvantaged childhood. Eager to fit in she learnt early to not reveal much of herself and just reflect the values of others. Jennie found moving from the UK to Australia in her early teens quite traumatic and in her late teens left home and went to live with acquaintances in St Kilda. Her reasonably quiet life fairly quickly transformed to smoking dope and then hard drugs. She didn’t like the effects of alcohol and it was never an issue in the early days.
Drugs led Jennie into prostitution, theft and eventually prison. She was able to go back to university, graduate and work in a profession but kept being drawn back into drug use and prostitution to pay for her habit. Eventually she stopped using amphetamines and picked up alcohol, which proved to have a much stronger hold on her. After a medical incident at 68 Jennie realized that she would have to give up alcohol to get well and approached Alcoholics Anonymous for help. It took a few goes before she realized that AA and abstinence was the answer and now at 72 she has been sober for over 4 years.
If you would like to find out a bit more about alcoholism for yourself or a friend, then you can give Alcoholics Anonymous a call on 1300 222 222 or check out their website www.aa.org.au.
If someone else's drinking is causing you a problem, then you can phone the Al-Anon Family Groups helpline on 1300 252 666 or go online at al-anon.org.au for more information.
#Recovery #Alcoholism #Anonymous #LivingFree #Sobriety
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