- Alcohol
- Faith
- Friends & Family
I have been sober for 100 months on May 10, 2016.
I was born into a family with an alcoholic father; who despite a Yale education lost every job he had to that point due to drinking, and would continue to lose many good jobs during my upbringing. As a youngster and young teen I swore off that I would ever drink alcohol because it ruined my family’s life. My parents stayed together although perhaps they should not have. My sisters both married young and were out of the house. My twin brother and I were the youngest of the siblings by about six years. By the time we were 14 years old, both sisters were married and gone. Our older brother was disabled by that point and brain-damaged as the result of a serious car accident. Our father was still drinking, so we really had no father-figure. It was just my twin brother and I and our mom, who had to work to sustain the family.
When my brother and I were 16 years old, our father went to treatment for at least the sixth time and this time it clicked. He got very involved with the 12 Steps, and died eight years later with eight years of sobriety. He’s now been gone for 32 years. Nonetheless it was the classic case of dad got well, but the rest of the family perhaps did not. With all due respect, our mother has been gone for ten years. Our family norm had become so skewed as to our dad being a drinker and the easy one to blame for all the family’s problems. To a certain degree we were all kind of mixed up and needed help, but our dad was the only one who got it. For me and my twin brother, at 16 years of age, we were still young and could forgive him, accept him back and welcome him back to the family fold. For the rest of the family too much damage had been done over many years. His last two major relapses, that I recall, were at both of my sister’s weddings. What should have been the happiest days of their lives was among their worst.
Again my brother and I were 16 when our dad got sober and it was kind of like, everything is all good now and okay. The drinking age was 18 at the time and we were very into high school athletics (i.e. running.) I was a school record-holder in multiple events and my brother was right behind me most of the time, so we kind of used running as our drug of choice, so to speak, certainly our escape.
A month or two after we graduated high school we turned 18, which was the legal drinking age. We went out on our on our 18th birthday and got pretty good and ripped the first time we ever drank alcohol. Although it didn’t take a tremendous amount; looking back almost 40 years ago, we had a pretty high tolerance and could drink a pretty decent amount and still have somewhat of our faculties with us.
I learned 30 years later, in treatment, that binge drinking is four or five drinks in one sitting. If that is so, we would binge drink before ever leaving the house and then would go bar hopping! That’s just what we did. I think we were certainly pre-disposed whether by our family dynamics or also genetically to be able to drink a lot and enjoy getting wasted. It doesn’t really matter what the drug is – in the end-run when you strip it down to the bare basics, you’re drinking or drugging to get wasted and you like getting wasted. It’s making up for something you feel you lack in your character or personality – a void you’re trying to fill.
We were of college age but I had no college ambition. I was working in a factory and going out drinking at night. At the same time my brother and I were still running and qualified for the Boston Marathon at the age of 18 and at 19 we ran the Boston Marathon. We did so well in the 1979 Boston Marathon that we became nationally ranked for the 19 and under age group in the marathon.
Even though we still binge drank, we got so into our training and running that we were trying not to let it interfere. Our running was of paramount importance to us, for me especially. It was perhaps too important for me and more important than college. Colleges were recruiting us for our marathoning ability and we ended up both going, but to this day I still don’t have a college degree. I went to college to run and drink and my academics were not a priority. I eventually dropped out of college because I lost my running eligibility for the team. I wasn’t carrying enough credits and I was not passing enough classes. Nonetheless we kept on running, and seemed to be able to balance the drinking and running.
By age 24 we were signed by Saucony shoes. We had a running team sponsorship and were both top 100 finishers in the Boston Marathon. Saucony was flying us across the country to run marathons. We were living the high life so to speak, running and imbibing. My brother did end up graduating with a college degree, despite it taking 7 years.
Eventually we went our separate ways and both got married; I married someone who did not drink at all. Not really thinking I had my dad’s drinking problem, I just tried to manage my drinking – not really realizing I was an alcoholic by nature. I would only drink on certain nights of the week. I would drink with the running club one night or the bowling team another night. I managed to pull that off for about 20 years.
Then this is when I believe life came in on life’s terms. My wife got tired of my drinking and at age 43 my wife and I divorced. I then remarried someone who drank like I did and within two years all the wheels came off. I no longer had someone nagging me about my drinking, so I began drinking on a nightly basis. When I really realized I was alcoholic in nature is when I started having morning cravings and then drinking morning, noon and night. I’d get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I would have to have some form of alcohol.
In very short order at the age of 46 I got three DWI’s in a seven month period. At the time I had two jobs, both with 20 years duration. They were able to find my arrest records online. Consequently I lost them both within a week or two.
After my third DWI I lost my freedom. I got a 6 month jail sentence and went into a 2,000 inmate facility at age 47. I didn’t come out for over 5 months, nor did I get the help I needed while incarcerated. I came out a broken, bitter man.
A week after I got out my mother fell down the stairs and died. Otherwise she was in perfect health. I felt like I had either caused her death or that she died with a broken heart because of me as I had just spent the last 5 months in jail. I was her youngest, even if it was only by 4 minutes. I had spent the most time with her and I felt like I had destroyed her. Then I began to try to destroy myself.
I was drinking at least 30 beers a day for about a year with no gainful employment. I was literally trying to drink myself off the planet and had suicidal thoughts. I would do dry-runs on how I would kill myself. I became homeless. On one of those nights, for some reason, I turned off a bridge and decided it wasn’t my time. I went to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission and they took me in. I resided there for the next three weeks until one of my sisters found out where I was. My other sister called and asked if they came and got me and took me to treatment, would I go? I had a moment of clarity and said yes.
I had my last drink on January 10, 2008 and it was on that next day that they came and got me. I was in treatment for about 2 months and then two different halfway houses for a total of 15 months. It was probably 30 years too late, but I finally got the help that I needed.
I started going to 12-Step meetings and I got a sponsor. I worked the Steps; part of that was being responsible and part of it was paying back my bills and making my amends. I became a much more upstanding human being, not only from my drinking years, but in my whole life. I adopted a God of my understanding and started living God-like principles. I had not grown up with any church and I was certainly atheist. That all changed. I got a job working at a grocery store that was very physical and it helped get me back into shape. I was determined to stay sober and work hard. I worked the third-shift at the grocery store for about four years and worked my way up to manager for that shift.
During my first year of sobriety I was going to meetings at least once a day and then in my second year I averaged every other day. I now go about once a week. What got me sober is keeping me sober. There’s a saying, “The easy part is to stop. The hard part is staying stopped.” I think that because my bottom was so low, I was next to dying, and I know that the next drink will lead to the death of me.
In the meantime, I discovered I had a heart condition. I was not able to start running again until the spring of 2009, with clearance from my cardiologist. I ran two half marathons that year and a 10 miler on my 50th birthday. In October 2010 leg issues caused me to have surgery on both legs for Compartment Syndrome. Once I was rehabilitated from surgery, I made a comeback and ran a marathon in June 2011 that qualified me for the Boston Marathon!
I have now run the last four Boston Marathons. In 2015, despite having already qualified, which secured my own bib, I decided to raise funds to benefit The Herren Project. I believed strongly in their cause and successfully raised $4,500!
Life isn’t always a barrel of monkeys or a bed of roses but living sure beats the alternative! Things are going well enough for me now with the variety of jobs I have and I got back into coaching thankfully (by being honest and some good years of sobriety behind me.) I don’t want to give that up. I love life today. I don’t need to get wasted to fill any sort of void. I basically fill that with the God of my understanding, which I can be whatever I want it to be.
My relationship with my brothers and sisters is wonderful. With the amends I have made, I have healed past friendship and made many new ones.
I would tell someone who is struggling to be every bit as diligent in seeking treatment and help as you were in seeking your drug of choice. If all of us put anywhere near the amount of energy and effort into quitting that drug of choice as we did into obtaining it, we’d be just fine.
It’s not easy. I’m never going to say I have it licked and that I don’t have to address the problem. It gets easier, provided you stay with your program of recovery.