Progress, Not Perfection — My Journey to 31 Years of Sobriety

I’m sharing this in the hope that it might help even just one person.

My name is Jim, and I’m an alcoholic. My last drink was on June 2, 1994. I opened a beer just before midnight — a Yuengling Black and Tan — with no intention of stopping. But something shifted. At exactly midnight on June 3, I stood up and poured it down the sink. I was 20 years old, just six months shy of turning 21.

Earlier that same day, my mother told me — for the first time that I can remember — that she was proud of me for being in college and doing well. What she didn’t know was that just a few weeks before, in mid-May, I had been asked not to return to school by several people: some friends, the university president, my academic advisor, and others in leadership. They all urged me to get help. By that point, I had effectively drunk away my baseball scholarship, burned nearly every friendship I’d made in college, and strained most of the relationships I had before leaving home.

My first voluntary drink was when I had just turned 12. I’d started working as a dishwasher in a kitchen to buy food and clothes for my sister and me. It was shortly after my father — my stepfather, legally — told a judge in court that he wanted to un-adopt me. If he couldn’t have custody, he figured he could at least save money by no longer paying child support for a child who wasn’t biologically his.

Back then, I blamed my parents for everything — especially my drinking. I don’t anymore, though I understand now they had their own struggles. My mother, until the day she died, was an undiagnosed borderline personality disorder sufferer. She was also an alcoholic, though she never admitted it. My stepfather wasn’t ready — emotionally or otherwise — to raise a child, especially one like me: a redheaded kid who didn’t resemble him or his Sicilian heritage.

When I first got sober, my mother called her younger brother — my uncle — and asked him to take me out for a couple of beers to “talk about it.” Needless to say, I never went. Fast forward 12 years: I found myself in a hospital in Burlington, Vermont, signing my uncle out so he could finish what he’d started with one last gallon of vodka. He had been hospitalized with what was essentially wet brain. He wasn’t going to get better, but he wasn’t getting worse, either. By signing him out, I signed his death warrant. He died four days later. That moment still wrecks me.

Looking back, it’s clear how early the patterns started. I was 12, working under the table, and drinking with the waitstaff — most of them in their 20s and 30s. It was a joke to them: the drunk little kid. I’d sneak a bottle of cheap vodka home every night I worked. By middle school, I was bringing vodka to school in my thermos every other day. By high school graduation, I was drinking a full bottle daily — hidden in the same thermos, stored in my locker across from the office of the school principal and superintendent. I don't remember who taught me vodka was "safe" to drink in public to keep a steady buzz going, but I suspect it was one of the cooks I worked with.

Now, 31 years later, I’ve built a life I never could’ve imagined. I’ve met and married my wife, Jackie. We’ve raised two beautiful children who have grown into adults without the demons that haunted me. I’ve worked in the same career for 17 years — stability that would’ve been impossible if I were still drinking.

It hasn’t always been easy. I still struggle to like myself some days. I still have to work hard to do the right thing — and then the next right thing. But I’ve learned something essential along the way: it’s not about perfection. It’s about progress. And progress is what’s kept me here.

If you’re struggling, I see you. And I promise, it can get better.

Author

Jim Todaro

The Burnt Chef Project Ambassador - US