Instagram: @laurs_world

YouTube: Laur's World

Hi! My name is Laurie Anderson, and I am an alcoholic!

My sobriety date is February 16, 2010.

I was born in Waterbury, CT 1964, the oldest of 5, in an all Italian/Catholic family. I have continued to live in the great state of Connecticut my whole life and currently reside in Derby CT. I work in healthcare as an administrative assistant for a physical therapy office. My passions are my family, cooking, gardening and my sobriety!

My goodness, my experience as an alcoholic isn’t unique. Those feelings of  not belonging, feeling less than, not loved, anxious ect. as a young child…I was brought up that whatever happened in the house, stayed in the house. If you want something done, you did it yourself. Asking for help was a sign of weakness. And children were seen and not heard. I sought out attention by story telling, visits to the doctor for stomach issues, boys, and my suicide attempt that landed me in a psychiatric ward at the age of 15.   This whole time, I never touched a drink because my experience with it at 14 made me blackout and vomit everywhere at a friends house, so it scared me enough not to do it anymore!!! After my failed suicide attempt, it was never spoken of again and we moved to a new town and I found myself attending a new school where I met the father of my children at the age of 15. We got married when I was 20 and I had my two children by the age of 23. I can’t say I didn’t drink anything throughout that time, but I didn’t like the taste of it and would usually water down the beverage. I thought I found the answers to my feelings of inadequacy being a wife and mother, but alas, I had not. I was in a constant state of depression. When I was 33 years old, I had my first taste of cocaine. I LOVED it! It made me feel alive! I could do and say anything!! And I quickly found out that if I drank, the feelings would last longer!! I was on a quest to do more and was obsessed with chasing that feeling. It was taking a toll on my marriage and of course, I was now able to say out loud that I wanted out of the marriage because it was the liquid courage speaking. When I left that marriage, I was like an animal out of its cage. I never went out as a teenager and so I was going to make up for all the lost time. And boy did I!!!! I was working 5 jobs to take care of my addiction and I didn’t see a problem. Two years of this constant partying and I started to get a little inkling that it was a hard way to live, but I swore I would never let anyone ever tell me what I could or could not do again. Enter my second husband. We fell hard and fast for each other and were married within the first year of meeting. He had asked me not to do the drugs anymore because he had had a bad relationship due to them so I answered yes, of course I will for you! Well, my drinking went absolutely insane. I can’t tell you how many a morning I woke up not knowing what I did, said or was. Those feelings of regret, remorse and self loathing were soul crushing. Maybe I needed help, I would whisper to myself. But I wasn’t “as bad” as say, my brother. He had a really big problem, not me! I watched him from afar going in and out of rehab. He called me and asked me to fly out to LA when he had gotten one year under his belt and so I went to support him as his big sister and his biggest cheerleader. This is where I had my first AA experience in June of 2008. A room full of addicts and alcoholics sharing their experience strength and hope and for the first time, I identified with these people. I felt a sense of belonging. I was drunk at this meeting, mind you, but I felt something….I was leaving for an Italy trip in a few months, so maybe after that I’d check it out…maybe.

January 8, 2010. The day that turned my life around.The series of events from this day forward, landed me where I am today. My 23 year old son Nick came into my office crying. What I heard next made my knees buckle. “Mom. I’m hooked on heroin, and can’t stop.” I didn't hear anything else. It’s still a blur. I think I screamed. I’m told I did. What? Heroin? No. It can’t be. I would have known. But I didn’t! I was so wrapped up in my own addiction that I did not see it at all. My heart hurt. I was determined on that day to get him the help that he needed. In and out of his first treatment center, landed him in another where it was a series of meetings and family sessions to get him better. On February 14, 2010, we were in one of those meetings and it hit me on the side of the head like a BRICK! I’m an alcoholic! They are talking about me here! I have a serious problem and I have to do something about this for me or I’ll NEVER be able to help him. I went home that day, drank myself silly for my last hoorah and walked into my first AA meeting in the little town I was living in and said the words out loud. Hi, I’m Laurie. And I’m an alcoholic. I haven't looked back since that day.

I can’t tell you that everyday has been the best for me. Especially the first two years. I fought it!! I didn’t want to take suggestions. I was white knuckling it for a good long time. I said I was only doing it for him so in case he relapsed, I could start drinking again. I had all these reservations. If this happened, or if that happened, then I could start drinking again. Well, a lot of things did happen in that first few years, a loss of my career, my home and all my possessions, an arrest, my son relapsed and a second failed marriage…but I didn’t have to drink over any of it! I kept showing up and just kept listening. Waiting for that miracle they all talked about. I wasn’t sure if I was coming or going but I was told, if I kept coming, I’d get to where I was going!! 

I literally take my life one day at a time. That cliche is the one I hated THE most and the one I live by today! If I can’t do something about a certain situation today? I don’t dwell on it anymore. I stay in the moment! My son is now 34 years old and doing quite well, I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter today that I never had in the past with her and yes, I am married. Again! After two “completed”, not “failed” marriages that I now like to call them, (words written by a good friend of mine) I tease that third time is a charm!! I worked hard on myself and my broken relationships and then  I found this wonderful man who is in recovery as well. We get to do this thing together and totally understand each others hearts without saying a word sometimes. Its just something you “feel” when you are around other addicts and alcoholics. 

I maintain my sobriety by keeping connected. I start off each day by sending out individual good mornings to my friends and family members so they know I’m thinking of them. There’s a few I add a meme of some sort of inspirational and/or recovery quote, a prayer to some others and I end my hour or so that it takes,   by sending a Just for Today thought to my recovery circle that is getting bigger and I just love it! During the pandemic, we couldn’t go to live meetings so I chair a Tuesday night zoom meeting to this day with my girls that I just treasure and just this past October, I started a YouTube channel with the help of my beautiful daughter and her partner, called Laur’s World. I interview people all over the US and more recently in Canada, and we talk about recovery. People sharing their stories on what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now! I LOVE it! Everyone comes into sobriety differently, and we all do our recovery differently. I was once a firm believer in if you didn’t do a traditional program of recovery, then you weren’t doing it right!! Not anymore!! I keep an open mind these days and WHATEVER works for you, I am thrilled for you and I want to hear all about it! 

Today, I am most grateful for my sobriety. If I don’t put my sobriety first, everything that I know and love, will certainly come last. “As much as you want to plan your life, it has a way of surprising you with unexpected things that will make you happier then you originally planned…That’s what you call God’s Will” ~Unknown

TRUST YOUR JOURNEY