Wow… so much going on in my life.

Hi, my name is Dan and I am an alcoholic.  I’ll be 48 years old in March and drank for a good thirty years.  Man, that blows my mind every time I say that.  I think that I’m not old enough to have done anything for thirty years.  My father and his father were both alcoholics and the earliest memories I have of my father include him having a glass of bourbon in his hand.  My father took his own life when I was eleven years old.  As you might imagine, this impacted my life in a pretty profound way.  I hated him for years – really, until I became serious about Alcoholics Anonymous and I realized that he probably dealt with the same fears and resentments and anger at the world that I had for many years.  I often wonder if his life – and my own – would have been different if he had found this fellowship.  In any event, I was an angry lost little boy.  A chip grew on my shoulder for the next thirty-four years.  Having experienced such a loss, at such a young age, I realized even then that alcohol had played a part in his suicide.  I vowed that I would never drink liquor as that would make me an alcoholic and I knew firsthand what would happen if I became an alcoholic.

Despite this knowledge, I first drank when I was 15.  I was careful to only drink beer – remember, liquor makes you an alcoholic! The kid that lived down the street and I found a six pack of Mickey’s big mouth somewhere – wow! We went to the wooded area near our houses that we called the fort and killed that six pack pretty quickly.  My friend had two and I had four.  I can’t really say that I loved it, but I sure polished them off pretty quickly.  I thought this was how to be a man and I drank every chance I could get.  I was 16 when I was out drinking in my mom’s car – a single mother and a teacher who was raising four kids and I trashed it.  I can remember today – with a bunch of shame that I didn’t feel then – driving her car around a parking lot and “squeezing” it between two big old concrete planters.  Of course it did a number on the car.  Believe it or not, the cops took me home.  Back then you got a slap on the wrist if you were lucky and, believe me, I was lucky.  Luck would follow my drinking career for years.  I’m sure that my actions caused a lot of painful repercussions for my mom, but I was too young and too stupid to know – or care.  I barely made it out of high school – and gave serious thought to dropping out the spring of my senior year.  I was too smart for school and wanted to get on with my life.  I joined the army when I was 17 in the delayed entry program and thought that I could just drop out of high school and then show up at the recruiting office and they’d take me right in.  The recruiter, my mom, and a guidance counselor at high school set me straight and I limped my way towards graduation.

I was off to boot camp the week I graduated from high school and, being young and tough, thought I was in heaven.  I excelled at army stuff.  I didn’t get to drink much that summer of boot camp down at Fort Benning, but made up for it when I got out of training.  The first thing I did when I got out of training was to go find a bar.  The second thing was to go find a tattoo parlor.  It’s important to note at this point that every stupid decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has been tied to alcohol in some form or fashion.

The Army sent me up to Alaska and I was in my element.  During the day time I did all the things that a young soldier was supposed to do.  I did well and quickly rose in rank.  Sooner or later I got to the point where I was a corporal and was entitled to go drink in the NCO club.  Man, I was in heaven.  I was well on the way to “becoming a man” and I thought the best way to prove that was to sit in the NCO club with all of the senior NCOs and drink myself silly.  These guys were all Vietnam vets and I used to love going in and listening to their stories.  I was young, I was strong, and everything seemed to be going along just fine.  Sure, there were the times I was up at 5:00a and running at the front of the company formation and I’d veer over to the side of the road and puke my guts out because I had been up until 2:00a drinking the night before.  The company would run right on past me with all sorts of cat calls and laughter.  It didn’t bother me one bit – I’d get done puking and then run right up to the front of the formation and continue as if nothing had happened.  Can you imagine that happening today? They’d bounce you out of the Army so fast it would make your head spin.  But it was a different time and I really wasn’t dropping the ball on the job so much.  So nothing much was made of it.  I learned how to do a bunch of things in the army – on the whole, it was a great experience and it taught me how to be a man.  It also taught me how to be a drinker.

I got out of the Army after a few years and went to college.  I liked to drink a lot more than I liked to study and so the college thing went pretty much the way you would expect it would.  After a few years and no degree I found a job in sales.  Man, I thought the army was good? A sales job was great.  Not only did everybody drink; now I was drinking with somebody else paying the bill.  Just like the army, things went well and I took to the new job and traveled for a few years.  I’d travel to a city on a Sunday and stay there throughout the week and do my sales stuff during the days and stay in a hotel during the week.  Again, somebody else was paying the bill.  I’ve always fancied myself a ladies man and was constantly on the prowl when I was on the road.  Booze and women.  Ha! Same old story, right? Things went well.  I was doing good, making more money than my mother ever made and thought that life was great.  Looking back, though, there were plenty of missed opportunities.  Opportunities for advancement, opportunities for stock options, increases in salary and so forth.  It makes me want to cry when I think about it – when I think about how much I could have earned had I not always done just enough to do the minimum to get by.  You know, to leave enough time for my drinking.  I didn’t drink every night at this point – it probably took me about 20 years to get to that point.

Those were a hard twenty years, though.  All along the way I found reason to be resentful about something.  Even though my life has been relatively charmed, I still had that chip on my shoulder and always found somebody else to blame for my problems.  Nothing was ever my fault.  I tried AA about 15 years ago and went to a handful of meetings – it wasn’t for me.  I wasn’t nearly as bad off as those guys and always ended up leaving a meeting and going to a bar.  How stupid is that?  There were plenty of people along the way that tried to tell me I had a problem drinking – I didn’t think I had a problem.  I saw a beer & I drank it.  No problem.  My mom tried to get me to quit for years.  She passed away in 1992.  I was living in Seattle at the time and flew home to Atlanta, and fortunately made it before she passed.  She had pancreatic cancer and from start to finish – from diagnosis to her passing was only a few months.  I was fortunate enough to spend a few days with her before she passed.  I recall spending time with her in the hospital and she was so weak.  It was hard for her to talk but she knew I was there and she tried to tell me something several times – but just couldn’t get it out.  I was engaged at the time and thought then that she was trying to tell me to have a good life, to be happy, and to say goodbye.  It was an emotional time but I sure did miss her message.  About 15 years later I woke up one morning and out of the blue realized that she was trying to ask me to stop drinking.  It was a sobering reality and I felt such a deep sense of shame that I didn’t receive that message at the time – and even more so that it took me 15 years to realize her dying wish.  So, did I do anything about it? No, not for another couple of years.

I ended up with a wife and two kids and kept right on doing the same stupid things that I had always done.  I talked earlier about how booze and women were things I always did.  I continued that for a long time – looking for some measure of happiness.  The funny thing about it, of course, is that I had a great life at home.  A wife who loved me (and who has stayed by my side throughout – which is an amazing story in and of itself).  I’m not proud of it today, but I had girlfriends and all the drama that are associated with living that kind of double life.  I’m certain my wife knows of my infidelities, yet she made the decision to stay by my side.  I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her.

Was I smart enough to drink at home? No, not really.  Sometimes I would drink at home but then I would run out of beer and I’d hop in the car and run over to the liquor store and pick up a 12-pack.  Then I’d drive home and polish it off.  I once ran over to the Target and picked up a case of beer and was so drunk I couldn’t stand up in the checkout line.  Some sixteen year old cashier asked me if I was ok to drive? I lied and said that somebody else was waiting for me in the parking lot.  Did this shame me enough to stop drinking? Of course not.  I’ve driven drunk more times than I can remember.  One time I went to a Cubs game on a really hot day and drank all afternoon with my coworkers.  I remember drinking all day.  But I don’t remember how I got home.  The only problem was that I was living in Milwaukee at the time.  I drove about 100 miles and made it home safely.  How did that happen? Other times I’d drink in a bar near my house.  I thought I would be exceptionally unlucky to get tagged for a DUI on the way home.  What kind of drunk was I? A stupid one, that’s for sure.  I was a loud boisterous drunk and more often than not pissed off somebody in the bar where I was drinking.  The bar put up with me because I was in there most nights and probably spent $50-75 every time I went in there.  That all came to an end one night when I was in the bar running at the mouth and the guy next to me picks up a plastic water bottle and smacks me in the face.  I’m quite sure I deserved it, but that didn’t stop me from what came next.  I honestly had a moment of clarity and thought “I’m gonna have this guy locked up” – and then he raised his hand again and I saw red.  I reared back and smacked him upside the head as hard as I could.  I watched him fall in slow motion as he fell off the bar stool and slumped to the ground.  He whacked his head on a big iron footrest at the base of the bar.  This guy is laying on the ground with blood coming out of his ear and his mouth and I thought, “this is it, I’ve finally fucked up my life and killed this guy.  I won’t be able to talk my way out of this.”  To make a very long story short, I did talk my way out of it.  The details aren’t too important, yet there were enough people in the bar to say that he started it.  The cop was a friendly cop and cut me some major slack.  I guess it didn’t hurt any that the other guy got in a fight with the cops and the paramedics.  So… once again, I had charmed my way out of something that could have really ended my life as I know it.  I knew I had a guardian angel up there somewhere, but I also knew my time was running out.

They say that this program is one of “yets” – you know, I haven’t lost my job.  I haven’t lost my wife.  I haven’t lost my family.  Yet.  Towards the end of my drinking career I reached a point where I just didn’t care about anything.  I didn’t care about my health.  I didn’t care about my family, my wife, my kids.  I stopped caring about living.  In fact, I thought my family would be much better off without me.  I was tired of working and thought about how much insurance I had and how my family would be better off if I checked out and they had a nice big fat insurance check.  Some of this stemmed from my insecurities.  I’ve always felt that I was somewhat of a fake – that I was just waiting for somebody to say “Hey, wait a minute… how did you get where you are? How did you get a nice job? A nice house? A nice family? A nice paycheck? You’re a fraud – you never finished college and, well, you’re just a drunk.” That’s really a horrible way to go through life.  I was too chicken to blow my brains out or drive into a bridge one night.  But I was bitter and angry about every little thing that went wrong in my life.  And you know what? Things really weren’t that bad.  I was just lazy.

It got to the point where I would drink every night and would wake up with a pounding headache and the first thing I would say every single morning was “God, please, help me to stop drinking.” Despite that honest and sincere plea every morning, I’d be drinking later that day.  I knew that it was just a matter of time before the other foot fell and I did something that I couldn’t talk my way out of.  I started every day with a pit in my stomach – I knew that today was going to be the day where I crossed a line.  It was a horrible, horrible way to live.

Towards the end of my drinking career I was feeling under the weather one day and went to the doc in a box and I thought I had the flu – I’d get a shot and be all better.  The doctor tells me that my blood pressure was really high and I was like, “yeah, yeah, whatever” and she tells me that she had never seen someone with blood pressure so high and she was thinking about calling an ambulance right then and there and that if I left I might stroke out on the way home.  Of course I blustered through it and promised to go see my doctor.  Damn.  Now I had to find a doctor.  I went in and found a great doc and told myself I would be honest with her about my drinking.  She got me on BP meds and suggested I think about AA.  I went to a meeting on March 1, 2010 and found a fellowship that saved my life.  Maybe this time I realized that it was right where I belonged.  Maybe it was that I saw guys just like me and I knew it was the place for me.  I don’t know what it was, but I do know that it took this time.  I did my ninety in ninety and really felt at home – for the first time ever.  I continued with daily meetings for over a year.

A few months into my sobriety I woke up with a powerful hangover.  I was so disappointed in myself – I thought that I had – again – tossed everything away.  As I lay in bed and felt sorry for myself it came to me that I hadn’t actually gone out drinking the night before.  I looked around the bedroom and there was no pile of empties in the room.  I realized that my body was trying to trick me into relapsing.  Man, talk about cunning, baffling, and powerful.  It was a potent reminder that I couldn’t rest on my laurels – that I was an alcoholic and I would die an alcoholic.  The thing that is really crazy about this? There’s some little kernel way back in the back of my mind that whispers “you can drink again one day”… I sometimes think that when my kids are off in college and started in their lives and I don’t have the responsibilities that I have today, well, sure, then I can have a drink.  That scares me as I know how the story ends if I drink.  I don’t know if alcoholism is a disease or a genetic thing or whether I’m just stupid.  But I do know that I drinking again will kill me.

Today my life is so different that just a few years ago.  I’m spending a tremendous amount of time with my kids and I have repaired my relationship with my wife.  I have good days and I have bad days – I have to keep up with all the day to day stuff, but now I care about life.  I care about living and I want to be here for my family.

I mentioned fellowship earlier and want to briefly touch upon this in closing.  There are lots of parts to AA, but it is the people that make it what it is.  I have stronger and closer relationships with the men and women of AA than I do with most people in my life.  The people in this room have given freely of themselves and have shared their stories – and in doing so have saved my life.

Thank you.