My name is Toni and I’m a sober alcoholic. I was born on the west side of Cleveland to a middle-class, hard-working family. My dad was an alcoholic and from an early age I learned about living in fear and making myself small and quiet. I also have some forms of abuse in my story. Those things didn’t make me an alcoholic, but they did give me very unhealthy coping skills. Today, I am not a victim…as Katie Patton says, “victims don’t stay sober”. She’s right about that and it took me three times going through Jean Marie House to learn that.

This is my story, and the truth of the matter is that my story is not over. I grew up wearing many different hats per say very early on. I was raised in four different homes, maybe all in one week. There's a saying.... “never feeling like I belonged.” Well, I knew that feeling at age five, and I never had an identity for myself either. I do know that I dreamed about living with my mom and sisters my whole life. I always thought I did something, and that is why I couldn’t stay with them.

Hello my name is Nick and I'm an Alcoholic. Today I have a sobriety date of June 22, 2021. I have a working knowledge of the 12 steps. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor and so forth. I have a higher power of my understanding. My story begins in Hawaii where I was born. I have 3 brothers and 2 sisters. Parents that love me and would do anything for me.

My name is Aaron, I’m an alcoholic. My sobriety date is April 15th, 2021. I have a sponsor, a home group, a support group, and a new way of living. I was born in Lakewood Ohio . I had a good childhood, good parents, and everything I needed. But I was careless, selfish, and had a way of manipulating people from the start. My behavior had nothing to do with alcoholism.

My name is Kerri, and I am an alcoholic.  My sobriety date is January 7, 2021.  I felt defined by my past trauma’s.  Hopeless, insecure, invaluable, and like I had no purpose in my life.  Everyday my life was consumed in one thought.  How, can I not feel?  Everyday thought moment and action involved feeding my addiction.  The hunger was never satisfied.

My name is Thomas and I have the disease of addiction.  I know I suffer from the disease of addiction because it didn’t matter how I was living, homeless, unemployable, beat down, hungry, depressed and terrified that I may not live through my next use to see my two year old son or my mother again.  With addiction none of this mattered – all that mattered at the time of my active addiction was that next one; that next fix. 

My names Rochelle and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is June 17th of 2017, and every time I say that, even almost five years later, it still blows my mind. I was the alcoholic and drug addict that everyone lost hope in. The alcoholic that went to jail over and over again, treatment centers over and over again, and gave everyone around me every reason to hate me. Today, I can't think of a single person that I truly hurt who hasn't forgiven me, or isn't back in my life.