Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

—JAPANESE PROVERB

No little girl lays awake in bed at night, dreaming of what she will become, and says fervently to herself, “I hope I grow up to be an alcoholic!” No wife and mother wakes up in the morning, stretches and yawns and says casually to herself, “This would be a good day to get so drunk I have to go to the emergency room.” She doesn’t pour breakfast cereal into a bowl and think, Maybe I will even flirt with death and drink so much my blood alcohol level will be lethal.

There are a lot of people who think alcoholism is a character defect, a weakness or a lack of self-discipline. I know, because I was one of them, even when I was deep into the disease. I kept thinking, I will just cut back. Later, I would berate myself: For God’s sake, get it together. I was so disciplined in so many areas of my life—my work, my exercise, my diet, my budget. But all that focus and effort and willpower were useless for me when it came to alcohol. Because it truly is a disease, as the American Medical Association said way back in 1966. Perhaps it is because we hurt so many others, as well as ourselves, when we drink. We do so much damage. Our loved ones and those near us recoil, or worse, bail altogether. Sometimes, we deserve that. But I can tell you that nearly every addict I know drank or took drugs because there was something else bigger that felt wrong, that hurt so much, it was unbearable. Numbing that “something else” became the only way to survive. We were, many of us, tormented souls who needed to find our way, however possible, to a place of grace.

Alcoholism and addiction have touched millions of people in this country. If you don’t suffer from it, you know someone who does. We are your wives, your mothers, your daughters, your sisters. We are your children, your colleagues, your employees, your friends. We are Emmy award–winning journalists, Grammy award–winning singers, and Oscar-winning actors. We are diplomats and doormen, presidents and accountants, housewives and handymen. In the face of this disease we are all equal, the playing field leveled. If we are truly fortunate, we have employers who did not abandon us, family who stood by us, and perhaps someone who helped us find our way back, who never forgot that beneath all the appalling behavior there was a human being.

I am so very lucky for my family and my friends who stood by me. For years, my parents and my brother and sister were sick with worry… terrified that one day a call would come that I was dead. My family spent countless hours on the phone together, trying to figure out how to help me. My friend and producer Terri Lichstein was on many of those calls—and at my side during some of the worst times. I am deeply grateful to Ben Sherwood, James Goldston, Barbara Fedida, and David Sloan for giving me another chance at ABC News, for allowing me to return to the work I love. I am so fortunate that the producers and staff at 20/20 forgave me, and worked with me this past year. I am grateful Marc took such good care of our children during the times I could not, and that he tried his best to take care of me. I am thankful that he and I have found a way to be good parents to our boys together, even if we are now apart.

I wrote this book because when I first worried I had a drinking problem, I read other peoples’ books about their battles with the disease—mostly women. I spent my whole life looking at other people and thinking their lives were perfect and easy and wonderful, while mine was not. Maybe someone watching me on television, or seeing me in an airport, or walking down the street, thought the same thing about me. Perhaps my story will show them everyone has something they struggle with, something difficult and painful. There is a saying in recovery that you are only as sick as your secrets. Now my secrets are out. Part of me is absolutely terrified. I know some people have already heard a different narrative about the blackout, the visits to the emergency rooms, the drunken vacations, the trips to rehab. I have lived in fear that those stories would leak out to the press, as tiny bits of it already have. Now the narrative is mine. I must own my story, and I must take responsibility for my role in the end of my marriage. I still feel enormous guilt and anguish over what I did, and the people I hurt. I will never get back all the precious moments I lost with my sons, and that is perhaps the most bitter pill of all. I remind myself every day that I cannot undo what I have done, that I need to focus on what I can do now and be the best mother possible to these two incredible boys I am so lucky to have. They tell me they have forgiven me for what I did while drinking. I pray someday I will find the power to forgive myself.

Today, am I cured of alcoholism? No, one is never cured. It is a daily battle, a daily choice. I have heard alcoholics with twenty-four years of sobriety say, “Thank God I am sober today,” and mean it. They have learned and embraced a valuable lesson. Today is all we have. That’s all anyone has, really. When I walk down the street, past restaurants and wine bars, I still sometimes glance at the tables of people enjoying what I cannot. I take in their glasses, half filled, and their easy camaraderie, and I feel envious. I still sometimes pass a liquor store and shudder with memories of my secret trips there to stock up. But that happens less and less now. Even more surprising to me is that my anxiety—my lifelong nemesis—has waned. Somewhere in my journey, the alcohol that I used to calm myself turned into kerosene—igniting small blazes of worry into bonfires of panic. It is still amazing to me how manageable my anxiety is, now that I am not drinking.

Every day I make the choice not to drink, the choice to be present in every moment, even the difficult ones. And every night I thank God for another day of sobriety. I do not take it for granted. Not now, when I have seen how quickly everything good about my life can dissolve in a glass of wine, never to be recovered. I am responsible for my own sobriety, and my own happiness. I cannot expect other people to fix my problems, or blame them when things go wrong. Learning that lesson has helped me take ownership of my own life again. It’s not perfect, it’s sometimes really hard. But it’s mine, and it’s up to me to make the most of it, and there is so much to be so thankful for.

I think back often to that hike I took up that mountain in Utah on my last day at Cirque. How I thought so many times that it was too hard, that the journey to the top was too far. I remember how I looked around at the beauty all around me and decided then to soldier on, timing my breath to my steps. Slow and steady, breathing in, breathing out. And between breaths, never forgetting the lesson I learned that day about recovery, about life, a lesson I now remember every single day. One step at a time, one day at a time. Be strong. Be grateful. Just do the next right thing, and you will arrive.