- Alcohol
Hello! My name is Larry, and I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. My drinking started at nine years old in an alley behind the apartment building where I lived. A man drinking gin offered me some, so I took it and kept taking it until I was drunk. When I went back upstairs my older sister Nancy saw how drunk I was and started trying to sober me up before our parents got home. When my parents arrived, she had me go lay down in my room and play sick so they would not find out. I remember opening my third-floor bedroom window and vomiting all over the sidewalk. That was my first experience with alcohol.
As I got older, I became a dysfunctional part of my family. I got angry easily and was constantly in trouble. I started smoking weed when I was about 11 or 12 years old and fell in love with it. It became an obsession. I could not seem to get enough of it.
Around 1970 my family moved to a small town in New Hampshire. It was a huge culture shock to me, and I could not stand it. I ran away a lot because I hated the place so much. Around 1972 I met my closest friend who I still consider a brother. His name was Joe. We met in our eighth grade homeroom class. He was from Kansas, and I was from Massachusetts. The first day we met, we got in a fistfight that was one of the biggest fights of my life. The gym teacher had to come break it up. After that you could not separate us.
We got into a lot of trouble together. We skipped school together, got high together, hiked across the country together and went to reform school together. We tripped our brains out on acid in Las Vegas and had the wildest night of our lives. One night in New Hampshire, Joe Jumped out of a third-story window in the middle of winter in his underwear and was never seen by the state of New Hampshire again. I was the only one who knew his whereabouts.
Just before he left, my son Larry Jr. was born. Joe had recently had his appendix out, and he told me the symptoms of appendicitis. I pulled off a fake appendicitis attack so that the day after my son was born, I was holding him in my arms. I pulled off cons as a kid and thought I was so smart, but I did not see the hurt I was causing others, and in this I was not very smart at all.
I lived in Connecticut with my first wife Diana. I was about 20 years old and had a great job as the foreman of the grounds at a big apartment complex. I worked as a foreman during the day and as security at night. I got good pay for being a foreman and free rent for security work. My father was strict but good to me, and he was dying in New Hampshire at the same time my wife Diana was pregnant with my second son, Joshua.
I was drinking heavily at this time and dealing weed. When my dad died, it was tough for me and my whole family. My older brother Bernie and I were the black sheep of the family and gave our father more trouble than he deserved. My father died telling me how to live, and the guilt I felt after he was gone was almost unbearable. My mother came to stay with us after my dad passed on, and my son Joshua was born. The joy of Joshua and the loss of my father so close together put me an emotional roller coaster. I had to ask my mother to leave, because my wife could not handle having a newborn baby and a sick mother-in-law at the same time. This took a lot out of me as well.
I resented Diana without even realizing it. We had what I call a “boil.” It involved three or four days of intense arguing. She started poking me with scissors and tempting me to hit her, and I kept telling her to knock it off or I would eventually hit her. I finally saw red, pinned her to the floor and black-and-blued both her arms and legs. The cops were called, and I was in my bedroom when they arrived. Three of them walked in, and I got up and started swinging. I didn’t have anything against the cops, but I knew they would never understand what led to the bruises on Diana, and I did not want them to think I would hit a girl but be afraid to stand up to a man.
I ended up having a complete nervous breakdown at the age of 21 years old and was hospitalized for three weeks. I lost my job and my family, and I moved back to New Hampshire. While there I ran into a lady that knew Joe’s mother, and I got her phone number. I started to call, but I had to put the phone down two or three times, because I could not stop crying. I had found my brother.
After talking with Joe, I hitch-hiked to Florida. He put me to work roofing. The money was good, and after a month or two, I had Diana and Joshua set up in a nice apartment. My sister, her boyfriend and my nephew and his wife moved in too.
I was drinking heavily at the time, and one night my sister and I got into a big argument. My sister is a very tough girl, I was very drunk and I was afraid she might hit me. Being hit by her is not a good thing at all so I slapped her, and she fell back, tripped and hit her head. It scared me, and everyone was mad at me. I went into my bedroom and locked the door. This moment in my room was the first time I saw that alcohol was becoming a problem for me. I made a promise to myself that I would not drink any more, but the very next night Joe and I were out at the bars drinking and getting high.
Diana and I were going to split up so I brought her and my son back to New Hampshire. She had family and friends there. I was sad the day we split up and went out and found some acid. It was the first time I ever had a bad acid trip. I went to the hospital and was admitted into a detox program.
Andy, a member of a 12-step support group, took me out of detox and let me stay at his house. He brought me to meetings where I was meeting good, down to earth people who were full of life. I did not know how I could match up to some of them. I was sober for about a year when I met my second wife, Barbara. Life
just took off for me, but I did not know that the underlying causes of my drinking and drug use would soon surface.
Remorse over past deeds and all the emotions I never dealt with were coming to the surface, and I started drinking again until it started “snowing” in the middle of July. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was sheet-rocking and making good money and had a great wife, beautiful daughter and a serious problem that I did not want anyone to know about: I was in love with cocaine.
I had the stuff hidden everywhere. We would have parties at my house, and I would use the bathroom a lot because that’s where my private eight-ball was. All the money for bills was being used for coke. My wife started to wonder why I was making promises I could not keep, and she was getting more uptight. She worked for the police department. If you have a spouse who works with the police, a coke problem will not mix well.
I remember promising her I was going to Connecticut for a week to sheet-rock a house and to earn 1500 dollars. I told her I would bring her the entire check so she could pay off the bills, and I truly meant that promise at the time. By the end of the week, I had spent 800 of the 1500 on coke. When driving home I pulled over into the emergency lane, put my head on the steering wheel, cried and asked god for help. I could see the trap I was in and had no idea if I could ever find my way out.
I made it back with just 500 dollars, and I did not want to go home and face my wife. Instead I went to the zoo, the wildest club in New England. I blew the last of the 500 dollars. I guess I figured it was better to go home broke than with only 500. I tried to sneak back into the house without waking my wife, but she was awake and waiting for me. I felt like a little mouse getting slammed in the trap. Shortly after she gave me my walking papers, and it devastated me. I hit rock bottom, and that’s what it took for me to get help.
I went to the hospital for a 21-day detox. I was seeing Christmas lights going off in my head because of all the coke. I couldn’t believe what kind of man I was becoming. I wasn’t the man my father wanted me to be or the man that I wanted to be. Alcohol and drugs remove every good thing from your life and leave you high and dry. Regaining the affection of those you hurt can be nearly impossible.
I have since moved from New England to Oregon, and I stand before you with 27 years of continuous sobriety. I have come a very long way and a very hard way. Today I am not the man I want to be, but I thank God I am not the man I used to be. I would not trade my worse day sober for my best day drunk, because despite all that I have lost, today I have one thing. Today I have Larry, and I have Larry because of the 12-steps.