Elaine S., 56, is getting ready to celebrate another anniversary. In one month, it will be 24 years of sobriety. “My addiction was to alcohol. I drank for 17 years of my life, starting out about 14 or 15 years old… a lot of curiosity with my friends. It was a wonderful relationship right from the get go…. It progressed until I finally hit bottom 17 years later. Hitting … bottom was not living with my kids anymore.”

“The first part of my drinking… I had a lot of fun. It was a great time. Then it became something more. I used it more often…. My life wasn’t working. I was 18 or 19… I was trying to go to college, but I didn’t have discipline…jobs weren’t working.”