Alcohol. As someone said, I didn’t get into trouble every time I drank, but every time I got into trouble, it was when I was drinking. My drinking was getting worse, and had I continued then I would have lost my family.
My problem was that I’ve got some significant issues for which I was self-medicating. When I quit, no one told me that the other issues would get much, much worse before they got better. That was hell.
It’s been 18 months now, and I’m finally getting out of the depression more and more. I would be up, then down, then up, then down, but the trend is better.
AA helped, as did finding people I could relate to. Being a father really helped in that it was the only responsibility I wasn’t able to justify running away from.