Maybe.  Maybe not.

My next question to you is:  Does it matter?

I want to share a true story about Caroline.  Her name has been changed to protect her identity, but what I share is 100% truth.

Caroline had a very unusual relationship with alcohol.  She was very young when she had her first experience around 14 or 15 years old.  This experience left her with an unintended pregnancy and teen father who opted for the military instead of fatherhood.  This was quite some time ago when responsibility was an option as far as the courts were concerned.

Being a young mom and not finishing high school she found a man, as was encouraged by her parents, to care for her and her young one.  Her role became housewife and stay at home mother.  This is not a bad position to be in, unless you feel trapped and the only escape you have is through alcohol.

When Caroline drank she could be fearless, speak her mind, and run into the night footloose and fancy free.  The only problem was when Caroline started she couldn’t stop.  She would drink until she literally could not pick up another drink.

She carried on this way for decades.  And when she drank her personality shifted from happy to sad, angry to complete blackouts.  She had been diagnosed Alcoholic on more than one occasion.  Attended a couple rehabs.  She would leave her children unattended from a very young age, she had been hit by cars, raped, beaten, and so on.  Her loved ones would beg her to please quit drinking.  Nothing seemed to matter more than the call of freedom she found in the bottle.

Until, one day she stopped.  She had a medical crisis.  But she had had those in the past.  This time it was different for whatever reason.  And she quit drinking. She didn’t attend any meetings.  She didn’t go to church.  Nobody threatened her.  She simply quit drinking.

Caroline has abstained from alcohol for over 6 years.

There are studies that show people do quit on their own.  They just grow tired of the life and decide enough is enough.  There are many experts who believe people that get sober, who have been trying for years and years, whether by AA, 12 steps, religion, faith, love, dancing naked in the moonlight, do so because they simply “mature” out of the behavior.  They just happen to be in the middle of which ever program or cure when this happens and it then becomes “what worked”.

I don’t know the answer whether or not anybody is an alcoholic.  There is no lab test that can confirm or deny.

What I know for sure is every being on the planet is uniquely created, thereby can have their own unique experience becoming sober.

There is no ONE or RIGHT way to get sober.

– Teresa Rodden, Certified Life Coach