I've been attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for about five months and the meetings have been a blessing in my recovery. For us young people, staying sober can be very difficult because drinking seems to be the "cool" thing to do. We can often feel like our lives are "over" in early recovery, and that we are going to be missing out or boring. When I thought about attending AA, I asked myself, "how can I possibly relate to someone who is over the age of 40?" However, in the past five months my attitude has drastically changed.

I am a planner and a worry-wort. Due to my anxiety, I always need to have everything planned out in a specific way and I have an extremely hard time when plans change. When I was in high-school, I had my academic career planned out and I had anticipated exactly what was going to happen in the future. I was going to graduate high-school, go to Ryerson University to study Business Management and eventually get a masters degree. Little did I know that I was suffering from mental illness and that my carefully planned future was going to take me in a different direction.

When I walked into my first substance abuse recovery meeting, "one day at a time" had no meaning to me. Because of my anxiety, I always thought days and even years in advance, future tripping and wanting alcohol to cope. I thought of never being able to have a drink ever again, and it terrified me. It wasn't until someone with multiple years of sobriety told me that all I had to do was live one day at a time that immediately, miraculously, I found a sense of relief.

How do you make a relationship work when you have mental health issues? It's a big question and I've learned some important things via my own experiences throughout the years since being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The first tip I'd like to share is: make sure your partner is well educated about your mental health condition. Do not expect them to understand your symptoms or what you're going through. Keep in mind, most people do not have a good working understanding of mental illness.