Back from the Brink: One Teen's Struggle with Alcoholism

It started with a glass of wine when Leigh Ann Nolan was 12. Then came the fall -- failing grades, lying, despair, and rage that tore her family apart. Four years later an all-out intervention -- and her family's love and faith -- helped save her.
A Full-Blown Alcoholic at 15

It was September 2005, the night of the varsity volleyball match against archrival The Bolles School, and the hundreds of teens heading into the gym at Bishop Kenney High in Jacksonville, Florida, were stoked. So was 15-year-old Leigh Ann Nolan, who'd spent the day drinking rum. "My big sister, Jennifer, had driven me and a friend of hers to the game, but they had no idea I was wasted," she says. "Other than stumbling through the door, I don't remember a thing." That's because Leigh Ann had downed three 12-ounce water bottles filled with Bacardi 151, a liquor so potent -- 75.5% alcohol -- it's actually as flammable as lighter fluid. Jennifer, however, has total recall of what happened next. She watched as Leigh Ann somehow made her way to the top of the bleachers on the other side of the court. "She called out to me," Jennifer says. "She was giggling, but she looked ill. Suddenly, here comes my sister rolling down the steps onto the gym floor, throwing up all over herself."

Friends ran over and carried Leigh Ann to the bathroom. When police arrived, they found her lying on the floor, babbling incoherently, and were unable to rouse her. By the time she arrived by ambulance at nearby Wolfson Children's Hospital, her breathing was shallow and irregular, her heart rate had slowed, and she was in danger of choking on her own vomit. "The ER physician explained that they didn't normally admit teenagers for being drunk, but Leigh Ann was suffering from acute alcohol poisoning and at risk of dying," says her mother, Susan, who had rushed to hospital with her husband, David. The Nolans spent the next 24 hours in an anxious vigil as Leigh Ann was administered IV fluids and vitamins in order to flush the alcohol from her 5'10", 150-pound frame. When she regained consciousness the next day, doctors told her she was lucky to be alive.

But Leigh Ann was beyond the point of being scared sober. She was in the grips of a full-blown addiction that had begun three years earlier with her first sip of wine; within months she'd graduated to the hard stuff and was soon nursing vodka in class and stashing liquor bottles in her school locker. Susan, 52, a sales executive, and David, 57, a human resources manager, knew their daughter was in trouble -- but not how deep -- and having tried everything from tough love to therapy, felt helpless to save her. This time they had Leigh Ann undergo three weeks of intensive treatment for chemical dependency at Ten Broeck Hospital in Jacksonville and attend AA meetings nearly every other day. That, too, failed. "I got sober for all of one week," Leigh Ann says. "Quitting wasn't a matter of wanting to. I was hooked -- on the high and the adrenaline rush of sneaking around and fooling people. Drinking numbed the pain from all hassles of life, but it wasn't like my problems disappeared. I knew if I stopped I would feel it really bad all over again."

The Beginning of an Alcohol Addiction

It's an early fall evening, and Leigh Ann, 18, sits on the bed in her Jacksonville apartment -- a few miles from the red-brick ranch house where she grew up -- sifting through her memories. "We had a pretty great family," she says, recalling how she loved to play sports with her dad and tease Jennifer, two years older, by stealing her Barbie and Ken dolls. Leigh Ann was still the tomboy when she enrolled at Hendricks Methodist Day School, where she was captain of the basketball team and a star soccer player, but a C student. Near the end of seventh grade, she was home alone one night when she came across an open bottle of white wine in the kitchen and, on a whim, poured herself a glass. "It tasted good, and I liked the feeling -- all warm and relaxed," she says. "I didn't understand alcohol other than it being something my parents drank every now and then. And not just them -- everybody. All the TV shows we watched had people drinking, from Friends to Will & Grace. I figured it was part of life, and I wanted to check it out."
Of course the reason wasn't that simple. Leigh Ann had been a sunny, sociable kid throughout elementary school. But when puberty hit, she no longer felt comfortable in her skin. Her moods darkened, she turned inward, and fault lines opened up within the family. "My mom and I both have strong personalities, and we couldn't find common ground -- not even the sky being blue," she says. "We should've been able to have cool conversations, but I was never the kind who could talk about clothes or hair or gossip magazines. My sister was popular and accomplished -- everything I wasn't -- and as we got older our relationship got worse. I still liked my dad, but we grew apart too." Leigh Ann also found the social life at Hendricks way harsh. "I hung out with the guys a lot because they kind of thought of me as one of them. But the girls were jealous of that and shut me out. I guess I felt really lonely."
Leigh Ann took to secretly drinking in her room whenever her parents were out or too busy to notice. "I'd steal bottles from the wine cases my mom stored in the garage for this gift-basket business she had, then dump them in the recycling bin when nobody was around," she says. By eighth grade, the 13-year-old was hanging with older kids in the neighborhood, chugging beer and rum and bringing home the bottles they didn't finish. Soon she was desperate to get wasted as quickly as possible. "I went into my parents' liquor cabinet, where the vodka was," she recalls. "I hated the stuff at first -- it was really gross the way it burned my throat, and I almost started crying. But I wanted that feeling of freedom, of being uninhibited, of not having to worry."
Susan and David watched with alarm as their daughter grew sullen and disengaged. Leigh Ann lost interest in soccer and basketball, her grades slumped, and she fell into a depression so severe that they sent her for her first stay at Ten Broeck. But Leigh Ann kept her distance -- and her torment -- to herself. "I never let on, but deep down I was ashamed I hadn't done anything to make my mom and dad proud," she says. "Jennifer was good and never got in trouble, and I felt they liked her better. I wanted us to do more things as a family, but when we did go on vacation, I'd ditch them at night and go drinking with kids I'd never see again." Her parents, who had never seen her drink, didn't suspect alcohol abuse, nor had they discussed the dangers of drinking with Leigh Ann or Jennifer. David might have a beer once a week and Susan a glass of wine when friends came over for dinner, and they assumed that being good role models for their girls would be enough. "Looking back, it's clear we were oblivious to the warning signs," says David. "We thought she was just going through the usual problems of being a teenager."