Life never felt Unmanageable and I think that this is true for most people in the military. I think back to basic training when we had been given impossible tasks such as holding our bags over our head for what seemed to be hours at a time all while being yelled at and called a pussy. That wasn’t unmanageable.
We had to sit through hours of classes and we were forced to hydrate (even though our class was indoors) so I was on the verge of wetting myself so I leaned forward in my chair and peed on the floor because we weren’t due for a break for 30 min and I didn’t what to have wet BDU’s (this is normal right?). Another guy peed in his canteen to avoid the same fate. We laughed about it at the end of the day. This wasn’t unmanageable.
I believe that in some cases when you have the ability to function in pure chaos it is an asset (not in addiction). When we are under fire we are not expected to say “boy this is unmanageable”. It’s just not a question and a Can Do Attitude is what works both in training and in combat. This is what we get trained to do and this is what I believe the Military is looking for.
I think back shortly after basic training on my first combat deployment when a 203 round had been lobed into our small camp. One guy had got some shrapnel and our medic was taking care of him. We were still receiving indirect sniper fire. I remember thinking “well this isn’t all that bad”. I had several more combat type experiences on that deployment and they didn’t ever feel unmanageable. Stressful but not Unmanageable.
During my military career I was arrested 3 times for a DUI. This at the time never felt really unmanageable. It was stressful but heck just “rub some dirt on it and call me in the morning”. I don’t know how many times I had my battle buddies cover for me at a morning formation because I was to hammered from the night before to show my face. I don’t know how many piss testes I took that I should have failed. One time I had spent a whole weekend getting high on blow and I showed up to Monday morning formation to find out we had to take a piss test. I was lucky enough to know a few people and I had a buddy from another unit take my ID card and pissed for me.
Any normal person could have looked at any one day of my life and see my addiction make 90 percent of my choices, take 90 percent of my money and ruin 90 percent of my potential. Most normal people would see this as unmanageable but I didn’t see it or I refused to see it. I hear people in meetings say they didn’t see their addiction because they “paid all their bills” and weren’t ever “in trouble“. Well I was in trouble or escaping trouble by the skin of my teeth but hey “I got this, I’ll be fine. Take a knee face out and drink water.” right?
I was forced into treatment and it was one of my ways to avoid trouble. I didn’t drink or use while I was in treatment ,just so I could get the command off my back. I was planning on hitting it like I never left after treatment and through all of it I would know how to better avoid getting caught. Funny thing happened when I quit boozing and drugging life got easier and better. Wow what a crazy idea. When I was out drinking I turned into a big two year old child, maybe even a two year old with down syndrome. This child, with a man size body would make my choices for 12 to 48 hours depending on the weekend. This brought a lot of things for me to clean up afterward. Not until I quit drinking, long enough to clean up some of the wreckage that had been building up over the last ten years, did I feel real freedom and contentment with my life. I think the first thing that happened while in recovery was that I made a few friends that brought good things into my life and those friends that were in my life because we shared addiction weren’t hanging around anymore. I started to learn other ways to enjoy life and release stress so the longer I was clean the less I missed drugs and alcohol. This whole “One Day At A Time” thing really worked for me and I learned things one principal at a time and implemented them in my life.
I am still learning how to live today and I always will be but I learn things a little faster when I’m not suppressing my potential with hard liquor. I have a family now too. Crazy huh . For several reasons . One, that someone would want to be with me, All The Time (sober too) . Two, that someone would want to raise children with me. I don’t have the perfect answer and I don’t know what the best choice is all the time but as long as I’m not using or boozing I just might be OK and life is easier.
If you are or were a Service Member and would like to tell us all how you got Sober or just some cool things you have learned along the way i would like to post it Contact me at jjs42day@yahoo.com and we can get that started. Keep fighting the good fight
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Greasy Shoes
I was a Boy Scout in a small town while I was growing up. We had a man come talk to my scout troop about drug addiction as part of the scouting program. This man had been some sort of a doctor, I think, I don’t remember all the details but he ended up homeless due to drugs and alcohol. I had never heard of Skid Row other than the popular Heavy Metal band at the time. He had lived on Skid Row, a homeless drug addicted alcoholic. ( I don’t remember any of the details that got him there) Every morning he would walk to a employment office to work for the day so he could drink that night. On the way to the office he would rummage through trash cans and dumpsters, not looking for food but looking grease or lard to shine his shoes with. The rest of his walk he could look down at his shoes and then focus on the fact that he had shinny shoes and forget that the rest of his life was very “Unmanageable”.
Not to long ago I had very much felt that way. My “Shinny Shoes” was Alcohol. The rest of my life could be in shambles but as long as I could go home and drink I could make it through the day. I would do the very minimal at work with my unit, I’d do just enough to stay out of trouble. That was my plan anyways. Alcoholism is very much a progressive disease and my disease did progress to the point that I did get in trouble with the Military and the State.
Shortly after getting in trouble I was command directed into treatment. I thought I’d pay my dues with a counselor and go to a few AA meetings but “I had this on my own”. I am disciplined …… Right. “Surrender My ASS” This cant be that hard just “Don’t Drink”. I lied to my counselor about how much and how often I drank so I wouldn’t have a long treatment program. I lied to myself about how much I was truly struggling with my resolve to stop drinking. I did enjoy the meetings but “I guess you haven’t seen my Bench Press. Powerless that was true B.S.”. I relapsed shortly after starting treatment. I had a lesson on what Surrender and Powerless truly meant. I couldn’t “out run” this problem. I couldn’t spend more time in the gym to avoid this addiction. I couldn’t wrestle it, shoot it, yell at it or ignore it. Asking for help for something that should have been so easy to handle on my own was very weird and awkward for me. Then after asking someone for their help and applying what he asked me to do was equally as difficult. I made slow progress but one day at a time I learned to apply the 12 steps in my life. The crazy thing is that I felt like life got better as cleaned up my wreckage. Life really didn’t get better but I did, along with my attitude and beliefs.
I am so thankful I did finally have some very real consequences. I am so thankful for the pain that magnified the true problems in my life. The biggest problem was my desire or obsession to drown every feeling with alcohol. If I was happy I wanted to be happier and a drink would make that happen. If I was sad I would drink to avoid that pain. While I was drinking I was more social, I was nicer and most of all I was more comfortable in my own skin.
Today I have been clean and sober long enough to be comfortable with myself. If I have an emotion that I am having trouble dealing with I can talk to a close friend in recovery who helps me see my problems for what they are and these friends help me find real solutions. I try to do the same for others too and this program has really given me true peace and happiness. I am truly grateful that I don’t have to focus on the “Grease on My Shoes” to get through the day.
If you are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction there is help if you ask and are willing to be truly open and honest. It really can work and you will get better. I have been very fortunate to see it in myself and others. Recovery has been a real anventure.
Not to long ago I had very much felt that way. My “Shinny Shoes” was Alcohol. The rest of my life could be in shambles but as long as I could go home and drink I could make it through the day. I would do the very minimal at work with my unit, I’d do just enough to stay out of trouble. That was my plan anyways. Alcoholism is very much a progressive disease and my disease did progress to the point that I did get in trouble with the Military and the State.
Shortly after getting in trouble I was command directed into treatment. I thought I’d pay my dues with a counselor and go to a few AA meetings but “I had this on my own”. I am disciplined …… Right. “Surrender My ASS” This cant be that hard just “Don’t Drink”. I lied to my counselor about how much and how often I drank so I wouldn’t have a long treatment program. I lied to myself about how much I was truly struggling with my resolve to stop drinking. I did enjoy the meetings but “I guess you haven’t seen my Bench Press. Powerless that was true B.S.”. I relapsed shortly after starting treatment. I had a lesson on what Surrender and Powerless truly meant. I couldn’t “out run” this problem. I couldn’t spend more time in the gym to avoid this addiction. I couldn’t wrestle it, shoot it, yell at it or ignore it. Asking for help for something that should have been so easy to handle on my own was very weird and awkward for me. Then after asking someone for their help and applying what he asked me to do was equally as difficult. I made slow progress but one day at a time I learned to apply the 12 steps in my life. The crazy thing is that I felt like life got better as cleaned up my wreckage. Life really didn’t get better but I did, along with my attitude and beliefs.
I am so thankful I did finally have some very real consequences. I am so thankful for the pain that magnified the true problems in my life. The biggest problem was my desire or obsession to drown every feeling with alcohol. If I was happy I wanted to be happier and a drink would make that happen. If I was sad I would drink to avoid that pain. While I was drinking I was more social, I was nicer and most of all I was more comfortable in my own skin.
Today I have been clean and sober long enough to be comfortable with myself. If I have an emotion that I am having trouble dealing with I can talk to a close friend in recovery who helps me see my problems for what they are and these friends help me find real solutions. I try to do the same for others too and this program has really given me true peace and happiness. I am truly grateful that I don’t have to focus on the “Grease on My Shoes” to get through the day.
If you are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction there is help if you ask and are willing to be truly open and honest. It really can work and you will get better. I have been very fortunate to see it in myself and others. Recovery has been a real anventure.
Friday, September 24, 2010
After the storm passes
Looking out on to the choppy water I see a boat in the distance that is getting tossed carelessly about over and over again, waves crashing against the side of the boat. As I watch it I start to think to myself; I wonder if anyone is out there on it, possibly alone and wondering if there is any way that I can help the person who was just possibly enjoying sunshine and calm waters before the storm came, but how could I help? Who could I call? Would they want my help?
I am the wife of the man who 'Stumbled Home' late one evening with which feelings very relateable to the above. I got the call from my husband whom earlier had been arrested for a DUI and then released to a taxi cab to be brought home but home was not where he ended up. My husbands voice on the other line sounded so far away, so lost, so sad I could just hear the pain in his voice. I asked my husband where he was and that I wanted to come and find him and get him safe in our home, but he had no idea where he was and at that point I remembered that I had no means of transportation to come and get him because our only vehicle at that time had been impounded in result of the DUI, I was also new to the area so I didn't know of anyone who could get him for me. With in about 30 to 45 minutes, which felt like an eternity, he walks in to our house with his head hung low, crying uncontrollably. I felt like I just wanted to take his pain away and tell him that everything would be alright, but at that moment I don't think that anyone could help someone who felt so alone, so helpless, and the pain that addiction brings, so all I could do was just hold him and be there for him.
The following day was the begining of our journey to sobriety. I had never known anyone whom had battled addiction in any form so I found out that there was a meeting called Alanon that is there to help family members of alcoholics and I attended AA meetings with my husband every Friday night for our date night, drove my husband to many AA meetings early or late, it didn't matter to me, I just wanted to do whatever I could in my position to help the love of my life I did not want to see the demon of alcoholism take my best friend and my love away.
Through attending countless meetings, getting a sponsor, and by the grace of God I now have a sober husband that could only be the husband and father that he is today by becoming sober. Sobriety allows you to live up to your potential, cultivate your talents and hobbies, and will make you in to the person you never thought you could ever be living a life constantly fighting addiction.
After the storm passes as dark and cold as it was at the time there is such beauty that follows, seeing what the tide has brought in such as beach glass knowing that at one time it was possibly a beautiful bottle but is now broken into pieces all along the shore, but going through what it went through this now small piece of glass is beautiful in its own way and has become stronger because of the water tossing it about and being pushed along the sand of the beach, but the best thing that passes along with the storm is another day, another day to live a life of sobriety.
I wanted to thank my husband for fighting the good fight, and giving me the only thing I could ever ask for and that is the man of my dreams, I love you.
I am the wife of the man who 'Stumbled Home' late one evening with which feelings very relateable to the above. I got the call from my husband whom earlier had been arrested for a DUI and then released to a taxi cab to be brought home but home was not where he ended up. My husbands voice on the other line sounded so far away, so lost, so sad I could just hear the pain in his voice. I asked my husband where he was and that I wanted to come and find him and get him safe in our home, but he had no idea where he was and at that point I remembered that I had no means of transportation to come and get him because our only vehicle at that time had been impounded in result of the DUI, I was also new to the area so I didn't know of anyone who could get him for me. With in about 30 to 45 minutes, which felt like an eternity, he walks in to our house with his head hung low, crying uncontrollably. I felt like I just wanted to take his pain away and tell him that everything would be alright, but at that moment I don't think that anyone could help someone who felt so alone, so helpless, and the pain that addiction brings, so all I could do was just hold him and be there for him.
The following day was the begining of our journey to sobriety. I had never known anyone whom had battled addiction in any form so I found out that there was a meeting called Alanon that is there to help family members of alcoholics and I attended AA meetings with my husband every Friday night for our date night, drove my husband to many AA meetings early or late, it didn't matter to me, I just wanted to do whatever I could in my position to help the love of my life I did not want to see the demon of alcoholism take my best friend and my love away.
Through attending countless meetings, getting a sponsor, and by the grace of God I now have a sober husband that could only be the husband and father that he is today by becoming sober. Sobriety allows you to live up to your potential, cultivate your talents and hobbies, and will make you in to the person you never thought you could ever be living a life constantly fighting addiction.
After the storm passes as dark and cold as it was at the time there is such beauty that follows, seeing what the tide has brought in such as beach glass knowing that at one time it was possibly a beautiful bottle but is now broken into pieces all along the shore, but going through what it went through this now small piece of glass is beautiful in its own way and has become stronger because of the water tossing it about and being pushed along the sand of the beach, but the best thing that passes along with the storm is another day, another day to live a life of sobriety.
I wanted to thank my husband for fighting the good fight, and giving me the only thing I could ever ask for and that is the man of my dreams, I love you.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Seed Being Planted
I was introduced to AA in Houston Texas when I was 18 I realized early that I liked drinking or better yet I loved drinking and drugging. I could forget I was not popular in school I could be anybody then. I could be a big bad drug dealer I could be a gang banger. Which thank God I wasn’t either. I did not even fit in with this crowd. When I was 18 I wanted to join the Army and be an Airborne Ranger infantry took 4 years, later joined as a Chemical Specialist.
Well I was living with my father (minister of a small town Saint Paul Neb Methodist church and member of AA for 25 years this year 2010) he gave me the ultimatum quit drinking or move out. The budding alcoholic that I was I picked moving out. I moved in with a young man (we will call him Ted) that was the tough guy in town. I was working in a truck stop the owner an alcoholic in his own ways also. Moving in with Ted allowed my drinking increased tenfold. I was too busy to go to school because drinking became an occupation and school was a nuisance to my drinking career. Even work was a nuisance to my favorite pastime.
Drinking was everything I had then. My mom sent me up to live with my father because I was too out of control for her, and my father knew I was living with Ted. Ted was old enough to go to bars and clubs in Grand Island, Neb. So I figured out I had to get a fake Id. I would be 26 with this fake ID so I could hang out with Ted who I thought was my friend who I realized later he only was using the fact I had a job and made some money. That was heaven I could drink and be around beautiful woman at least I thought so, too young to know what a beautiful woman was.
Well one night at the club Ritz in Grand Island like any other night I was drinking screw drivers and bud lights all night long. About midnight this girl Angie was like Derek you want to go to a party I was like sure. Ended up at somebody house no idea who’s it was. I had to act tough everybody else was older I was a really drunk and I should have quit like 5 beers before and pass-out on some body’s couch. I was violently woken up this guy punching me in my head. I roll-up and blood rolling down my head I have no idea what was happening besides being punch and being dazed people are surrounding me and this guy and he is like so you and Angie are having sex. I had no idea what he was talking about. He came at me punched me like three times in the head in the stomach and in the shoulder. I tried to fight back but I was to drunk and somebody pulled him off of me and said dude he is only 18 an year old kid and then Angie came up and he cussed at her and slapped her. Some reason that really pissed me off I grasped a bottle then hit him in his head with it knocked him out. Through all the noise and violence cops showed up. Blue lights rotating on the wall somebody was like dude get the F out of here. People started to split. I grabbed a half full 12 pack of beer that was on the ground knowing I was going to need them later.
I went to my car and knowing I was drunk and the only way to get out of trouble was escape in my car. Started driving away with-in a block I was pulled over and for some reason I remembered to bury the Id in my seat. Within minutes of him pulling me over and me getting out of the car I was in the back of his squad car and was being hailed off to jail. I was booked for DUI I blew a .2. I served a week in jail during that week my dad visited me and he told me he was not going to bail me out and he was not going to tell my mom unless my mom called. He knew she would have bailed me out like every other time I’d been in trouble. Went to court a week later and when everything was done I finally called my mom and she sent me a bus ticket to come to live with her.
Part of getting released to her I had to go to 6 months of AA. I Was in Houston, Texas was trying to be sober. The seed of AA was planted I remember walking in there and old crusty man looked at me and said “son are you done yet or do you need more time out there and lose much more“. In 1990 I needed much more pain and today after being around the program for about 5 years now I always feel for those young men and woman out there coming in and being introduced to this wonderful thing that has changed my life. In every aspect I cannot imagine not being sober. If you are a young person and wondering if you’re alcoholic, chances are pretty good you are because non-alcoholics do not wonder if they are or not. There is only one thing I can promise you if you’re an alcoholic and you continue to drink It will only get much worse. Take it from a man whose career has been crippled by DUI’s and life has been mangled by alcohol. I took AA to have a relationship with God and learn how to change and mold my life into something I can be proud of for my kids I am not a drunk I am a dad.
A single father of a 12 year old girl and 7 year old son with 2 years and a few months of sobriety with almost 17 years in the Army and work at Warrior Transition Battalion one of my greatest things I have done in the Army up to this date. My duty is working with mentally and physically injured soldiers.
I had been thinking about this prayer and want to live like this. “Lord, make me a channel of thy peace-that where there is hatred, I may bring love-that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness-that where there is discord, I may bring harmony-that where there is error, I may bring truth-that where there is doubt, I may bring faith-there were there is despair, I may bring hope-that where there is shadows I bring light-there were there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort that to be comforted-to understand, than to be understood-to love, than be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying one awakens to eternal life amen…” take care SSG Dimond, Derek
Well I was living with my father (minister of a small town Saint Paul Neb Methodist church and member of AA for 25 years this year 2010) he gave me the ultimatum quit drinking or move out. The budding alcoholic that I was I picked moving out. I moved in with a young man (we will call him Ted) that was the tough guy in town. I was working in a truck stop the owner an alcoholic in his own ways also. Moving in with Ted allowed my drinking increased tenfold. I was too busy to go to school because drinking became an occupation and school was a nuisance to my drinking career. Even work was a nuisance to my favorite pastime.
Drinking was everything I had then. My mom sent me up to live with my father because I was too out of control for her, and my father knew I was living with Ted. Ted was old enough to go to bars and clubs in Grand Island, Neb. So I figured out I had to get a fake Id. I would be 26 with this fake ID so I could hang out with Ted who I thought was my friend who I realized later he only was using the fact I had a job and made some money. That was heaven I could drink and be around beautiful woman at least I thought so, too young to know what a beautiful woman was.
Well one night at the club Ritz in Grand Island like any other night I was drinking screw drivers and bud lights all night long. About midnight this girl Angie was like Derek you want to go to a party I was like sure. Ended up at somebody house no idea who’s it was. I had to act tough everybody else was older I was a really drunk and I should have quit like 5 beers before and pass-out on some body’s couch. I was violently woken up this guy punching me in my head. I roll-up and blood rolling down my head I have no idea what was happening besides being punch and being dazed people are surrounding me and this guy and he is like so you and Angie are having sex. I had no idea what he was talking about. He came at me punched me like three times in the head in the stomach and in the shoulder. I tried to fight back but I was to drunk and somebody pulled him off of me and said dude he is only 18 an year old kid and then Angie came up and he cussed at her and slapped her. Some reason that really pissed me off I grasped a bottle then hit him in his head with it knocked him out. Through all the noise and violence cops showed up. Blue lights rotating on the wall somebody was like dude get the F out of here. People started to split. I grabbed a half full 12 pack of beer that was on the ground knowing I was going to need them later.
I went to my car and knowing I was drunk and the only way to get out of trouble was escape in my car. Started driving away with-in a block I was pulled over and for some reason I remembered to bury the Id in my seat. Within minutes of him pulling me over and me getting out of the car I was in the back of his squad car and was being hailed off to jail. I was booked for DUI I blew a .2. I served a week in jail during that week my dad visited me and he told me he was not going to bail me out and he was not going to tell my mom unless my mom called. He knew she would have bailed me out like every other time I’d been in trouble. Went to court a week later and when everything was done I finally called my mom and she sent me a bus ticket to come to live with her.
Part of getting released to her I had to go to 6 months of AA. I Was in Houston, Texas was trying to be sober. The seed of AA was planted I remember walking in there and old crusty man looked at me and said “son are you done yet or do you need more time out there and lose much more“. In 1990 I needed much more pain and today after being around the program for about 5 years now I always feel for those young men and woman out there coming in and being introduced to this wonderful thing that has changed my life. In every aspect I cannot imagine not being sober. If you are a young person and wondering if you’re alcoholic, chances are pretty good you are because non-alcoholics do not wonder if they are or not. There is only one thing I can promise you if you’re an alcoholic and you continue to drink It will only get much worse. Take it from a man whose career has been crippled by DUI’s and life has been mangled by alcohol. I took AA to have a relationship with God and learn how to change and mold my life into something I can be proud of for my kids I am not a drunk I am a dad.
A single father of a 12 year old girl and 7 year old son with 2 years and a few months of sobriety with almost 17 years in the Army and work at Warrior Transition Battalion one of my greatest things I have done in the Army up to this date. My duty is working with mentally and physically injured soldiers.
I had been thinking about this prayer and want to live like this. “Lord, make me a channel of thy peace-that where there is hatred, I may bring love-that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness-that where there is discord, I may bring harmony-that where there is error, I may bring truth-that where there is doubt, I may bring faith-there were there is despair, I may bring hope-that where there is shadows I bring light-there were there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort that to be comforted-to understand, than to be understood-to love, than be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying one awakens to eternal life amen…” take care SSG Dimond, Derek
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Stumbling Home
Stumbling Home
So there I was walking or stumbling home through some part of town that I had never been nor was I exactly sure how I got there. I had a vague recollection of being pulled over and being in a cab. The ticket in my pocket verified this that I had been stopped and charged with a DUI. The ticket was accompanied by a small computer print out that resembled the Home Depot purchase receipt in my pocket. The print out stated that I had a Blood Alcohol Level of .2.
“Funny that was my B.A.C. at my last DUI” I said to myself but no one was around to hear my witty humor at the situation.
I had a pending DUI from 45 days before when I had hit a curb and disabled my car while driving home from drinking with a buddy one afternoon. I had been to court and hadn’t settled anything yet.
I was about seven miles from my house and I still wasn’t sure why I had been dropped off in a residential neighborhood so far from where I lived.
“I must have passed out in the cab and he was tired of dealing with me so he just dropped me off here or I had thought I was home and I just got out.”
I had been in Out Patient Treatment with the Army Substance Abuse Program for my previous DUI. I really had only been going there to pay my dues ,make my Command happy and continue the lifestyle I had become accustomed to for the last ten years. I had always believed I was a heavy drinker but that was what I liked. I felt a sense of pride because I could drink large amounts. I would use drinking for most everything , to relive stress, to enjoy the day, to settle down after a late night work out, to help me get to sleep, are just a few of the reasons I drank. The prior DUI was the only time I had been in trouble or that’s what I told myself.
As the Alcohol and euphoria from it left my body and it was being replaced by the depression I usually felt when coming down from a night of drinking I thought to myself “How did I let it get this far.” I put all the stops in place, I had only bought a small bottle of wine, I was drinking at home and I wouldn’t drive, again ,RIGHT. I started to remember all the close calls I had had over the years to DUI’s before and other things too. It was all the normal mischief that comes from being drunk. The clearer my thinking became the more I started to realize how truly powerless I was at this time and how powerless I had been to control this addiction for some time. In all my treatment classes that I had been to in the past 30 days I had felt that I had power or control over this because “I didn’t drink every day” or “I didn’t need to drink to get through the day”. I had always assumed alcoholics or people that were addicted had to use or drink everyday to be “OK”. For the first time I was looking at how much my story now related to all the others I had heard in treatment. The stories of people with a “real drinking problem”. I started to see how I only attended social events where alcohol was served and even my extra curricular activities such as mountain biking was still centered around where to drink afterwards. When I had gone to see my family ,who didn’t drink, I would cut my visits short so I could attend parties even one Christmas when I hadn’t seen my family in a year I cut leave short so I could attend a New Years eve party where I was stationed.
I started to believe that “I was missing out on life so I could drink!” I was not living up to my potential or ideals of what I wanted to be because I drank so much. I don’t know if it’s a quote or where I heard it but some words that were heard somewhere in my life said “It comes down to a simple choice really, Get busy living or get busy dieing .”
I heard a train in the distance and wondered for a few seconds what choice I was going to make. A second DUI in 45 days was going to cripple if not kill what was left of my military carrier. I was debating for several minuets if I was worth more to my family dead than alive, if stepping in front of the train would be better for us all.
I’m here today writing this because I chose to live. The very next day I went to work with my head hung low feeling even more depressed. I attended an AA meeting at lunch and cried like a baby about what I had done to my life and how lost I truly felt. People in the program were the only ones giving good advice so I started following that. I attended 90 meetings in 90 days, I asked someone to be my sponsor and he still is today, I got a home group, I started attending church with my family and I started living 24 hours at a time. Things started getting better from that day on. Over one year latter my military career is still in shambles but I don’t drink over it. I have been picking up the pieces and I have come further than I and others ever thought possible. I now feel like I am closer to living up to my potential and my ideals for a husband and a father. I have only had one fight with my since that day and it wasn’t even about my drinking. I feel happier than I ever have in my life and I know that things are going to be OK. I am so happy I never have to stumble home again.
So there I was walking or stumbling home through some part of town that I had never been nor was I exactly sure how I got there. I had a vague recollection of being pulled over and being in a cab. The ticket in my pocket verified this that I had been stopped and charged with a DUI. The ticket was accompanied by a small computer print out that resembled the Home Depot purchase receipt in my pocket. The print out stated that I had a Blood Alcohol Level of .2.
“Funny that was my B.A.C. at my last DUI” I said to myself but no one was around to hear my witty humor at the situation.
I had a pending DUI from 45 days before when I had hit a curb and disabled my car while driving home from drinking with a buddy one afternoon. I had been to court and hadn’t settled anything yet.
I was about seven miles from my house and I still wasn’t sure why I had been dropped off in a residential neighborhood so far from where I lived.
“I must have passed out in the cab and he was tired of dealing with me so he just dropped me off here or I had thought I was home and I just got out.”
I had been in Out Patient Treatment with the Army Substance Abuse Program for my previous DUI. I really had only been going there to pay my dues ,make my Command happy and continue the lifestyle I had become accustomed to for the last ten years. I had always believed I was a heavy drinker but that was what I liked. I felt a sense of pride because I could drink large amounts. I would use drinking for most everything , to relive stress, to enjoy the day, to settle down after a late night work out, to help me get to sleep, are just a few of the reasons I drank. The prior DUI was the only time I had been in trouble or that’s what I told myself.
As the Alcohol and euphoria from it left my body and it was being replaced by the depression I usually felt when coming down from a night of drinking I thought to myself “How did I let it get this far.” I put all the stops in place, I had only bought a small bottle of wine, I was drinking at home and I wouldn’t drive, again ,RIGHT. I started to remember all the close calls I had had over the years to DUI’s before and other things too. It was all the normal mischief that comes from being drunk. The clearer my thinking became the more I started to realize how truly powerless I was at this time and how powerless I had been to control this addiction for some time. In all my treatment classes that I had been to in the past 30 days I had felt that I had power or control over this because “I didn’t drink every day” or “I didn’t need to drink to get through the day”. I had always assumed alcoholics or people that were addicted had to use or drink everyday to be “OK”. For the first time I was looking at how much my story now related to all the others I had heard in treatment. The stories of people with a “real drinking problem”. I started to see how I only attended social events where alcohol was served and even my extra curricular activities such as mountain biking was still centered around where to drink afterwards. When I had gone to see my family ,who didn’t drink, I would cut my visits short so I could attend parties even one Christmas when I hadn’t seen my family in a year I cut leave short so I could attend a New Years eve party where I was stationed.
I started to believe that “I was missing out on life so I could drink!” I was not living up to my potential or ideals of what I wanted to be because I drank so much. I don’t know if it’s a quote or where I heard it but some words that were heard somewhere in my life said “It comes down to a simple choice really, Get busy living or get busy dieing .”
I heard a train in the distance and wondered for a few seconds what choice I was going to make. A second DUI in 45 days was going to cripple if not kill what was left of my military carrier. I was debating for several minuets if I was worth more to my family dead than alive, if stepping in front of the train would be better for us all.
I’m here today writing this because I chose to live. The very next day I went to work with my head hung low feeling even more depressed. I attended an AA meeting at lunch and cried like a baby about what I had done to my life and how lost I truly felt. People in the program were the only ones giving good advice so I started following that. I attended 90 meetings in 90 days, I asked someone to be my sponsor and he still is today, I got a home group, I started attending church with my family and I started living 24 hours at a time. Things started getting better from that day on. Over one year latter my military career is still in shambles but I don’t drink over it. I have been picking up the pieces and I have come further than I and others ever thought possible. I now feel like I am closer to living up to my potential and my ideals for a husband and a father. I have only had one fight with my since that day and it wasn’t even about my drinking. I feel happier than I ever have in my life and I know that things are going to be OK. I am so happy I never have to stumble home again.
Stick With the Stickers
Stick With the Stickers
As I had never known anyone in recovery when I hit bottom, the process that I surrendered to in search of sobriety was totally foreign to me. Part of the protocol for a self-referral in my military setting was to attend a two-week alcohol and drug addiction class while being introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. In the first day in this class, the seasoned recovering soldier up front declared that we would be able to obtain sobriety if we would do just five things. As he reached for the chalk to write on the board, I reached for my pen and paper. I desperately wanted to stay sober and was eager to learn the secrets that I had not been able to find on my own (despite trying all the things our big book describes). He wrote:
1.Don’t drink (when everyone sighed, he added that the remaining four ensured #1)
2.Go to meetings
3.Get a sponsor
4.Read the book
5.Stick with the stickers
The rest of the class that day focused on the disease of alcoholism, and while I was interested and listening, I kept pondering the five secrets to achieve lasting sobriety.
As I said earlier, I had no previous exposure to recovery, and I had some incorrect assumptions about it. I thought that meetings were more classes to teach us where we had previously gone wrong with our sober attempts and then we would go on with our lives. I thought the slogans on the wall posters, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers where summary reminders of the secrets that would aid us to stay true to the lessons. Thus, I made every effort to read and memorize all the bumper stickers that I could. I wanted to be a good student and craved sobriety, so I studied these slogans in an effort to “Stick with the stickers.”
During this two-week class, my program consisted of not drinking, listening at meetings, planning to get a sponsor when I found the perfect one, reading the big book, and sticking with bumper stickers. When I heard people in meetings say that they had been sober for periods over a month or two, I felt sorry for them that they were such slow learners. I had been a secret drinker, and learning to share in recovery was a very slow process. I stayed to myself and rarely talked to anyone at meetings, and thus never asked why people were at meetings when they had been sober for a while.
On the last day of class, our instructor again wrote the five secrets on the board, and this time he commented on #5. He said, when you’re at meetings, look around and find those folks who keep coming back. Stick with those stickers. They are the winners, as recovery is not only about not drinking but also about learning to live happy, joyous, and free lives while sober. Huh?! I nearly fell out of my chair with this news. This was a life-long program? I needed to become part of this “fellowship” that I heard about at meetings? I should get close to these people? My head spun and my heart raced with panic. Only by the Grace of God, I was willing to listen and try to follow his suggestions.
Today, I am twenty years sober and living an incredible happy, joyous, and free life. I wouldn’t trade it for the anything, and I owe it all to AA. The program and the fellowship have enabled me to live without alcohol and have enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams. The fellowship holds the closest friends I have ever known, and I trust my life to them on a daily basis. Whenever I hear the slogan, “Stick with the stickers,” I smile and say a prayer of gratitude for both my original interpretation as well as the intended meaning of the words. I needed and will forever cherish both the AA bumper stickers and those recovering folks who have gone before me and so graciously pass the program on.
As I had never known anyone in recovery when I hit bottom, the process that I surrendered to in search of sobriety was totally foreign to me. Part of the protocol for a self-referral in my military setting was to attend a two-week alcohol and drug addiction class while being introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. In the first day in this class, the seasoned recovering soldier up front declared that we would be able to obtain sobriety if we would do just five things. As he reached for the chalk to write on the board, I reached for my pen and paper. I desperately wanted to stay sober and was eager to learn the secrets that I had not been able to find on my own (despite trying all the things our big book describes). He wrote:
1.Don’t drink (when everyone sighed, he added that the remaining four ensured #1)
2.Go to meetings
3.Get a sponsor
4.Read the book
5.Stick with the stickers
The rest of the class that day focused on the disease of alcoholism, and while I was interested and listening, I kept pondering the five secrets to achieve lasting sobriety.
As I said earlier, I had no previous exposure to recovery, and I had some incorrect assumptions about it. I thought that meetings were more classes to teach us where we had previously gone wrong with our sober attempts and then we would go on with our lives. I thought the slogans on the wall posters, coffee mugs, and bumper stickers where summary reminders of the secrets that would aid us to stay true to the lessons. Thus, I made every effort to read and memorize all the bumper stickers that I could. I wanted to be a good student and craved sobriety, so I studied these slogans in an effort to “Stick with the stickers.”
During this two-week class, my program consisted of not drinking, listening at meetings, planning to get a sponsor when I found the perfect one, reading the big book, and sticking with bumper stickers. When I heard people in meetings say that they had been sober for periods over a month or two, I felt sorry for them that they were such slow learners. I had been a secret drinker, and learning to share in recovery was a very slow process. I stayed to myself and rarely talked to anyone at meetings, and thus never asked why people were at meetings when they had been sober for a while.
On the last day of class, our instructor again wrote the five secrets on the board, and this time he commented on #5. He said, when you’re at meetings, look around and find those folks who keep coming back. Stick with those stickers. They are the winners, as recovery is not only about not drinking but also about learning to live happy, joyous, and free lives while sober. Huh?! I nearly fell out of my chair with this news. This was a life-long program? I needed to become part of this “fellowship” that I heard about at meetings? I should get close to these people? My head spun and my heart raced with panic. Only by the Grace of God, I was willing to listen and try to follow his suggestions.
Today, I am twenty years sober and living an incredible happy, joyous, and free life. I wouldn’t trade it for the anything, and I owe it all to AA. The program and the fellowship have enabled me to live without alcohol and have enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams. The fellowship holds the closest friends I have ever known, and I trust my life to them on a daily basis. Whenever I hear the slogan, “Stick with the stickers,” I smile and say a prayer of gratitude for both my original interpretation as well as the intended meaning of the words. I needed and will forever cherish both the AA bumper stickers and those recovering folks who have gone before me and so graciously pass the program on.
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