Growing up in an alcoholic family, I often heard from my mom that I was at high risk of becoming an alcoholic, although I never really knew what to do with that information or what it meant for me personally. I had my first drink at the age of 12, which resulted in a blackout. Though I was scared every time I drank from then on, that didn’t stop me. I would vow to myself every time, ‘This time will be different.’ But it wasn’t.

I continued a pattern of binge drinking on the weekends from my teens through my mid-30s. I studied addiction in graduate school in a well-intentioned attempt to avoid becoming an alcoholic. I never got a DUI, lost my job, or drank during the day, so I thought I was in the clear. I didn’t “look like” any of the alcoholics I knew growing up in the bar business. For a long time, my drinking behavior didn’t interrupt my daily living.

Until it did.

Fast forward a few years and things began to change.