Hi, my name is Kristina, and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is March 3, 2022, and that's an important date to me because it's the day that I became willing to change. I grew up in Garfield Heights with my mom, dad and four sisters. My parents are also alcoholics, but they did the best they could raising us. There was a lot of fighting and arguing in my house daily, so I had a lot of fear as a young child. I was very shy and insecure growing up and did not like being around a lot of people.

My name is Shawn, and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 31, 2022. My friends call me Sonny. I was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, and I'm 42 years old. I come from a very strong Irish family. I was taught morals and values. My parents tried their best to teach me right and to keep me away from the streets, and it worked for a while. I was a good kid who listened to adults and did what I was told to do. When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was abused by a family member who I loved and trusted. After that I became really withdrawn and developed trust issues.

I have struggled with addiction for about half of my life and have been seeking treatment and solution for many years. I have been in countless rehab facilities, sober livings and detoxes all around the country, and here in Ohio. I started abusing drugs at a young age and found myself to feel very hopeless, depressed and lacking purpose throughout my adult years. My addiction has caused me to harm people I love, myself, people I don’t even know and pretty much anyone that would cross my path.

Hi, my name is Kelsey and I’m an alcoholic. I have a sobriety date of June 2, 2021. I’m 30 years old. I have a sponsor, a home group, and a higher power of my understanding — which is not something I ever thought I would say. For a long time, I believed that life had no meaning and I believed that my time on this Earth would never amount to anything. Thankfully, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous would show me that I can do things I never thought I could do and be someone I never thought I could be.

My name is Matt M and I'm an alcoholic/junkie. I have a sobriety date of 01/03/2019, a sponsor, a higher power, and a support group that cares more about my life than my feelings!! "Very Important" I come from a blue-collar family that was loving and caring. I grew up in Brunswick, Ohio. There is alcoholism in my family and we lived by a motto of work hard, play hard. Which I took to a whole other level.

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.