- Alcohol
Growing up in a well-protected home in a midsize town named Coburg, Germany, I met my friend, “King Alcohol,” at a young age. He eventually gave me company for decades. But I’ll say more on that later.
During the Cold War, my hometown was about 10 miles away from the Russian zone border, so American GI’s participated in security and border patrol. The local teenagers and parents alike were very happy about their presence. The youth of Coburg, including myself, got into immediate friendship with the GI’s. They brought American records, cigarettes and alcohol to our parties and were very welcomed guests in guesthouses and bars. A weekend without lots of alcohol and parties was not imaginable. This phase after the war in Germany was unburdened and open-minded, and we got to get used to the so-called American way of life.
After my school education, my parents wanted me to start an apprenticeship in retail, so I graduated from that. But soon, I had the desire to leave this closed-minded small town community and go my own way. At the age of 20, I joined the German Air Force for an eight-year duration. I went through basic training, sergeant training and continued training to become a maintenance technician at Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton, CA. I returned to my base in Germany, which had an agreement with an American Air Force base. The computer system, which I was trained on in California, couldn’t get delivered to Germany, so I had a lot of spare time at this point. I spent this time every evening in a bar as a well-known DJ. I was joined there by lots of German and American fighter pilots, other military personnel and my own comrade guests. This provided me with an additional income and lots of alcohol. This happened during the wild 1960s and these times didn’t stop before I ended my military career.
After my time as master sergeant, I moved to Frankfurt and started as a trainee at the world’s largest marketing agency’s German subsidiary. I started as a traffic controller and worked my way up to other agencies, eventually becoming a creative director and CEO. But even as I held highly responsible career positions, alcohol was my best friend and never left me alone in difficult situations. At this time, I was already experiencing alcohol dependency but did not notice it. There were no hints from friends or colleagues. They didn’t notice my alcohol problem. I was a level drinker who needed his daily intake of alcohol to function. I thought that it worked that way.
Today, I see how dramatic my body changed in those years. I was suffering from a fatal polyneuropathy, which made it often impossible to get one foot in front of the other. I had panic attacks daily. I couldn’t cross a road and had to ask strangers for help. I told them that I have a problem with my blood circulation. Stopping this daily stress should have been reason enough to fight against this alcoholism, the disease that demoralized me so much. The dramatic end of my self-detox went as follows: Delirium Tremems, respiratory and cardiac arrest, an ICU visit and a three-week path back to life.
This life-threatening experience allowed me to start planning my hospital stay. I was already in self-help groups and talked to therapists. I thought that I was emotionally stable and ready for my journey away from alcohol, without knowing how long it may take. I finally had accepted that I was addicted and therefore I had made the first step into my new life. I had a lot of physical and psychological tests during my long-term therapy and I became curious about the disease. In my group was a young man who was a leader at a psychological social information center, and we spent nights talking about his work with other people in the field of addiction.
After three months in this clinic, I returned home and tried to get in contact with as many doctors, psychologists, therapists and clinics as possible to get competent information on how to help others find their way out of addiction. With a special permit, I got into the Frankfurt University as guest auditor for clinical psychology and at the University of Applied Sciences for social education with an emphasis in addiction. Lots of seminars and a three-month clinical internship built my foundation to start working in this field. Finally, I got certified as an addiction coach and consultant. I wanted to know how this professional way of therapy for addiction disease is done outside of Germany so I decided to participate as a “professional in residence” at the Betty Ford Center in CA. I was involved in their residential treatment program, inpatient program and family program in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
I consider it to be a special privilege as a German to now be licensed as certified peer recovery coach by the International Credential and Reciprocity Consortium and by the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Board of Georgia.
In 2010, I started ZenSIS.org in Frankfort, Germany. This is a non-profit addiction and recovery center site. I also established the self-help group Leben lieben lernen.org, where I can help persons affected by alcohol addiction comprehensively.
With this description of my life, my suffering and my new life of recovery, I want to give all people who are affected by alcohol and drug addiction hope. I want to help give you the strength to never give up and to find your way back into a life that is free of addiction and full of happiness and contentment. Every person who believes in himself, never gives up and never loses the view of his goal to make a new start can do this. It is really worth it and it feels so good. Believe it!