I started using drugs and alcohol when I was 11. The first time I drank, I blacked out and suffered from alcohol poisoning. This was just the start of a rapid progression of drug and alcohol abuse. I used only weed and alcohol until I was 13. I had moved from Geneseo to Pittsford, New York, a suburb of Rochester, and found pills to be "interesting." From then on I was trying cocaine, crack, LSD, mushrooms, ecstasy, DMT, DXM, opium, and any other drug I could get my hands on. I started to skip school to get high daily. With this came suspensions. I was happy to be suspended so I could get high more often. Stealing became a daily part in my life. I stole thousands of dollars worth of family jewelry and pawned it for drug money. I had accepted that by age 20, I would either be dead or in prison. In 9th grade, I was arrested in school for possession of controlled narcotics. But even this did not stop me. My mother was starting to give up. She wouldn’t try to stop me from skipping school, she couldn’t. She got me into an inpatient rehab, but it was my choice to go because I've learned that one cannot be forced into recovery. For an unknown reason, I did not refuse. When I got into the rehab I was as angry as could be. I was on my way to leave when I got a call from my mom saying that I was on probation from the time I was arrested. This kept me from leaving. I was refusing to even try to comprehend anything that was being told to me. After I accepted that I would be there for at least my probationary period, I started to listen more. I started to attend the AA meetings that they bring into the residence. The 12 steps were explained to me. I wasn’t too fond of them in the beginning, but I thought I would try it out. At about 4 months clean, I got a sponsor and a home group. I had made the decision that I did not want death or prison by 20. I slowly became willing to make the changes that I would need for sobriety. I started to admit all the things I had done to my parents. Honesty showed up--formally a foreign concept to me. I completed all my treatment goals in rehab. I began to give back what had so freely been given to me because I knew that that was the only way I could keep it. I graduated treatment after about 6 months. I decided to take my sobriety into the outside world. I got a sponcee from the treatment program I was attending; I started 90 meetings in 90 days; and I began to do service work. Currently, I am finishing up my 90 in 90, doing outpatient CD treatment, and I am going to the international conference of young people in AA in August. I am recovery.