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.