Welcome to all newcomers!
I'm an alcoholic named Dean who is addicted to anything that makes me feel good or nothing at all.
My first sips of booze were as a toddler walking around from end-stand to end-stand and begging sips of highballs and beers from my parents. I progressed to stealing consecrated wine after Mass as an altar boy when I was nine years old and drinking it. By junior high school, I was having older boys buy me twelve packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon or a couple of bottles of Boones Farm wine on the weekends. I also stole bourbon from the half gallon of Kesslers that was always on the kitchen counter at home with mom and dad's make-shift bar.
By my freshman year in high school, I had been introduced to marijuana and almost instantly became a morning, noon and night toker lighting up before school, at lunch and after school. I was an excellent award winning student at the top of my class and I also worked practically full time at the local hospital as a dishwasher. I also did occasional acid trips, Quaaludes, speed and mescaline or whatever I could get my hands on.
In my family, functional alcoholism was the accepted norm. If you could hold down a job, keep the lights on, and maintain a semblance of order and pay for your booze it was okay to drink as much as you wanted. I continued that tradition throughout my own life.
I entered business, gave up all other drugs accept for my first love---alcohol. Within a couple of years, I was drinking morning, noon and night. I was still a national award winning retail manager in an internationally owned jewelry company and was recognized repeatedly in front of my peers. I left that job when I reached the point where the drinking and daily drunkeness made it impossible for me to do the job or deal with the stress. And of course I blamed them for my departure.
I struggled through a few other positions until the night I had a fateful confrontation with my oldest son, then sixteen, my youngest son and my wife. I had just come off of endoscopic sinus surgery and a two week binge with codeine and my normal daily maintenance amount of alcohol (two cases of beer a day, and a couple of five liter boxes of wine a week--only alcoholics drank liqour . :)
During the confrontation, I believed I heard my family wish me dead and I decided to oblige them. In the truest behavior of a deranged egotistical alcoholic I decided that my method of departure from this life would be starvation in the finest fashion mimicking Mahatma Ghandi. Oh boy. I went to bed for several days only getting up to shoot down a couple of beers to quell the shakes and take care of the sweating. By this point in my life, I couldn't go two hours without a pick-me-up even during the night while sleeping I drank until I passed out and woke to drink more to continue the nights sleep.
At one point in that time period, a voice in my head said, "Okay, Deano. Get up and get some help." Being a confirmed atheist at that time, I did not recognize the voice and didn't know where it came from. At that point in my life, I wanted to die rather then drink but couldn't live without drinking. Alcohol had become the 'rapacious creditor' that the First Step talks about. Although many of my experiences with booze had been pleasant, and I had enjoyed a lot of comfort from the bottle in the past, alcohol had turned on me and said it was time to pay back the debt I owed it. And like a ravenous vulture attacking my flesh and my soul, it intended to pick my carcass clean taking from me everything that I had including my life. I was drinking to die and dying to drink.
I called a counseling center who referred me to an inpatient treatment center. My last drink was at 9:55 p.m. on Thursday, August 20, 1998. I entered that treatment center for an almost one month stay on August 21, 1998, my first sober day.
Since that time, I have reconciled with God and the Roman Catholic Church. I accept that church as a man-made thing and I can accept many of the things that they command or teach as man-made rules. I go their to worship God and pay homage to the force in my life that saved me from a brutal alcoholic death. I go there to thank Him for allowing me to have a daily reprieve from alcoholism. The rules...I can live with them...in the greater scheme of things the only thing that matters is my relationship with God. I know a loving and merciful God today not the vengeful, accountant totalling up my transgression and planning my eternal ****ation that I used to believe He was.
My oldest son and I struggle constantly. He hasn't found it in his heart to forgive me and he might never. He is a college student and neither drinks nor drugs. My youngest son and I have a truly wonderful relationship. He joined the Catholic church last April of his own choice and is involved in the church with me. My wife and I are still building a new relationship and for the most part, we have found a way to communicate with each other, and a new closeness and a common way to worship the God of our choice. Oh, we argue from time to time, but we know how to do it without hurting each other or remaining in a lasting state of disharmony. I can't live with anger in my heart and a resentment in my head.
I didn't loose my house. I didn't loose my cars. I did get arrested several times for DUI and convicted once. I have spent nights in holding cells, one weekend in jail, and I have been through weekend interventions that made no difference at that point. I've been in three near fatal car accidents in which I probably should have been killed and I'm paying the price for the physical consequences of my alcoholism.
I work as a customer service rep full time and although it isn't my life's calling, I enjoy it.
Life is so valuable to me today. I could not find a way to stay sober until the treatment center took me to A.A. I had tried to figure out which beer it was that sent me off on that all night binge every day. I tried to stop at six, I tried to stop at five, etc. And I found that never picking up the first one was the answer. I took me over 20 years of hard drinking to figure that out.
I tried mystical cures, non-sectarian spiritualism, logic, and so many other methods to try to get sober. None worked for me until I found A.A. I believe that whatever works for you is wonderful. Whatever gets you sober is up to you. Just do it. It all begins with putting the plug in the jug.
I love A.A. It brought me to a new relationship with God as I understand Him and saved my life. I keep busy with service work. I've carried the message into jails and prisons. I wouldn't recommend myself as a sponsor because most of the men I've sponsored have relapsed and are now in prison. That's their choice not mine. Although it hurts to see them make that choice, it's a reminder to me of where I could easily be if I drink again.