I continued to do very well in school. As I think back over my younger years I generally had always done well in school, and pretty much any extracurricular activity I was involved in. I was an A/B student in school. I was Most Valuable Player several times on my softball team. I played basketball, and ran track. I was in a civic club that you had to be invited into in high school called The Anchor Club. I was school and state president for that club my senior year in high school. I was an overachiever in most everything I did. It was all or nothing. As I have gotten to know many many recovering alcoholics I have found they are very intelligent and overachievers as well. So when I was in photography school I had been chosen for the Best Portfolio in the class. I became the school winner in the GOAL (Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership) contest, and went on to win the state level award for GOAL. It was a really big deal and I won a car which I later sold to buy photography equipment. But I tell you all this to come to the night of winning GOAL. It was a BIG deal and we (contestants) partied hard in the bar that night. My fiancé at the time (I didn’t mention I was getting married two days after the  GOAL award), was with me but he sat at a table all by himself watching me dance on TOP OF THE BAR! I remember looking back at those photographs and thinking “what were you thinking?” This might have been the first night I got really drunk. I was embarrassed after seeing the photographs, and swore I would never do anything like that again!! Right…..