A former "college party girl" who got blackout drunk every night and had weekend "48 hour benders" got sober after going to rehab - aged 24.<br /><br />Grace Adams, 26, started her dance degree at university and engaged with the "college party life scene".<br /><br />Her lectures in the day were followed by nights of parting and binge-drinking - and repeating the next day to "numb" her feelings for "four years straight".<br /><br />She says she would turn up to morning dance rehearsals still drunk or "hungover and reeking of alcohol" - and hid empty bottles to conceal her addiction.<br /><br />Her problem continued when she graduated and got a job, until finally it all became too much and she confessed her addiction to her parents.<br /><br />At 24 years old she checked herself into rehab to get sober - and since then has had an "amazing" 14 months of sobriety.<br /><br />Grace, a media manager, based in the Upper East Side of New York, said: "At college, I thought it was normal to drink like that every night because everyone else around me was doing.<br /><br />"But when I got a job, every day the minute I finished I'd be drinking too - and I'd always take it too far.<br /><br />"I'd have to piece things back together from photos and texts to friends the next day.<br /><br />"I felt regret, shame and guilt constantly - but my solution was just to numb my pain with more alcohol.<br /><br />"Until one Sunday, I woke up from a bender and I called my mum. I was worn down from years of it - I was ready to admit defeat.<br /><br />"I sobbed on my way to rehab because I was terrified, but it ended up being the best decision of my life."<br /><br />Grace says she barely drank before moving to Dallas, Texas, US, to study a four-year degree in dance in 2016, at Southern Methodist University.<br /><br />But she quickly settled into the university drinking scene, and started going out to bars every night with her new pals.<br /><br />Grace said she and her coursemates subscribed to a "work hard, play hard" mentality - so her heavy drinking felt "normal".<br /><br />She said: "I would have dance rehearsals until 11pm then run home and start drinking before going to a bar.<br /><br />"I'd turn up to ballet at 8am the next day - still drunk, or hungover and reeking of alcohol."<br /><br />After four years of nightly boozing, in 2020 during Covid, Grace graduated and moved back in with her parents in Baltimore, Maryland.<br /><br />She said: "I realised it wasn't normal and started hiding my drinking - I’d drink after my parents went to sleep.<br /><br />"I’d take the empty bottles out when they had gone to work the next day."<br /><br />She returned to university in September 2020 to complete a masters degree in marketing - where she fell straight back into her old partying ways.<br /><br />Then after graduating, she got a job in New York City, in February 2022 - which was when things began to spiral.<br /><br />On Fridays, she would finish work and pour her first drink - and "be in and out of blackout for 48 hours".<br /><br />She said: "I was always the drunkest person out, who would have to be taken care of."
