I began drinking at 14 and continued for 55 years. I'm sober at 70.

"We were at a church retreat, and a boy had sneaked in a six-pack of beer. He stashed it in a pile of snow to keep it cold, and we opened the bottles with glee. After a while, I started to feel happy. However, it was accompanied by a sense of numbness. Things were tough at home, and I forgot about my problems for a while."

"My friend and I started drinking sweet, fortified wine. We had to rely on older kids to buy it from stores, who mostly used fake IDs. I couldn't help notice that my high school friends drank less than I did. They wanted to have fun, but it was more than just a joyride for me. I just wanted to feel better."

"One night, in my early 30s, I filled a flask with vodka. I was swigging it while dancing. I don't remember driving home, but I crashed my car into a barrier. Somebody came by and took me home, and my friends helped me pick up my car the following day. I was so hungover, it was painful. The fact that I'd blacked out scared me to death."

Barbara Face began drinking heavily as a teenager after a church-retreat incident and soon used alcohol to escape difficult family circumstances. She and friends consumed fortified wine bought with fake IDs and crossed a state border to drink legally at 18. Parental opposition to college and early marriage followed by divorce weakened her self-esteem and reinforced drinking as an outlet. Weekends centered on alcohol during her twenties and early thirties. One night she blacked out after swigging vodka from a flask, crashed her car, and endured a painful hangover. A therapist referred her to a thirty-day treatment center where she dried out.

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