It was another one of those nights where I had been out drinking all night and when I saw the look in her eyes there was no doubt in my mind or hers. Where once that had been joy at the sight of me there was only contempt. I knew then, that something needed changing about my behavior. But I was still clue-less about the real deal. I thought I was insane. Why else would somebody leave the house in the morning full of resolve about not drinking or getting high ended up one or the other on a daily basis. Of answer course the answer was that  I was insane.

Too hungover to go to work that day, so after my wife left for work I went to a church (I had already spoken with my doctor and he had muttered something about giving me a note or something). Today when I look back I can laugh about it now……

I don’t know about the GOD of your understanding but mine has a truly great sense of humor.  That church put me in contact with a minister who claimed he was a grateful recovering alcoholic, what ever that was. This guy was nuts about being grateful etc., etc., etc. Anyway he took me to a meeting and gave me something called The Big Book. So I took it home and read it that from cover to cover, well almost the cover, actually now that I think about I don’t remember reading the stories. Anyway I made a startling discovery, I was an Alcoholic. Oh sure I had said at the meeting that I was an Alcoholic and I remember the wave of embarrassment or was it a sense freedom from the admission, not that  it much matters now. But at last I knew the truth.

A lot of events started to happen all at once. I began to make one major mistake after colossal mistake after another. First I told my wife what was going on, admitted all of my transgressions to her (oops), did not have a sponsor, did not go to many meetings, started
drinking more (after all I was an alcoholic and alcoholics drink don’t they), moved out and separated from my wife.

Only another Alcoholic would know of the complete insanity that was to follow. What was my little secret for the past few years now became something I can’t even begin today to describe all that was to happen in the next few months. I had gone to enough meetings to have old the old timers would describe as a head full of AA and a belly full of booze. God I was a mess.

I wanted to die, I mean I wanted to die, but I couldn’t quite get up the courage to either slit my wrists or take poison. Another part of my insanity was my addiction to internet chat rooms, only back then they weren’t chat rooms. They were forums or CB and there was Quantum Link and CompuServe, CI$ as we called it back then. But I would get online drunk and weave a story thinking that I was fooling the whole world (I was, but only my world, and it consisted of just one, me.) So I remember I was typing away one day and this woman in New Jersey mentioned that I was ever out this way I could stay with her. Now one of the last things you should ever tell a drunk, living by himself out on an Indian reservation, lonely (what drunk isn’t, even in a crowd), slightly suicidal is to come for a visit. Try to keep in mind that I was living in Washington state and desperately seeking a way out other than facing you know who and what. You get one guess.

The very next time we connected online I typed – “Remember when you offered to let me come stay with you?”, etc., etc., etc. “I’ll be there in three days.” And I was.

I pulled into Denville, NJ around 3:00 in the morning with less than a dollar in my pocket. Met the woman. Man-o-man what a fix I was in, no money, no job, in a strange place and in a situation that any insane person would know was nuts. But hey I am an Alcoholic, I’m invincible but I was trying to stay dry.

Found a job, got back online again and life was good. Lasted maybe 30 or 40 seconds or so. There’s an expression (gazillions actually) The first thing you pack when you go for a geographical cure is yourself. I wasn’t long before I was drunk, insane and lonely again, only this time there was somebody on the other line just as whacked as I was. We
wrote to each other on-line and we talked over the telephone. We engaged in all of the activities any intimate dating couple would do, except for one little detail we had never met. When she gave me the news it was over I went insane. I was always a black out drinker and this time was no exception so what happened next I have only been able to piece together out of hospital reports and a few conversations.

I blacked out of course, I went online in a rage a using the keyboard, as artist might use a brush, I raped and assaulted her. Not for real but in my rage… I learned that I have that in me. I trashed the apartment I was staying in. I was trying to drink myself to death. I was told that while I was on-line I somehow ended up in some recovery chat room and these people called the police in NJ from their various states. Remember the woman I came to see, well she’s dating my roommate at the time (Did I say roommate, he was charging me $500 a month to sleep on his couch. Aren’t choices wonderful) Back to the girl… She arrived at the door the same time the Police arrived. (She has a key) Still in a blackout I wake up. I think almost all recovering Alcoholics get it, We call it a moment of clarity. I saw it all, past present and a possible future, I say possible because as long as I don’t drink my future is whatever I with GODs help want it to be.  A moment of divine intervention, I remember his name Officer S… from..  NJ and his voice saying,” Do you want to go to a detox son”.  I would like to say that I went to the hospital and we all lived happily ever after. Sorry, I wasn’t to get and stay sober for another month or so, but it was enough to break the cycle.

Our stories describe in a general way what it was like, what it is like now and our hope. In short our experience, strength and hope. My last drink was on Jan 12, 1987, I have passed my first decade sober. Enough has happened to me in that time for me to unequivocally state that there is a gentle, loving power that I choose to call GOD,
Jesus Christ and Holy spirit.

I met a sister I never knew existed, I helped to birth a beautiful young lady name Ashley, I’ve remarried, (she is such a blessing), added a step daughter, was in the hospital twice with my heart, went back to school and got my GED, trained to become a computer programmer, no more night sweats and found GOD (I know GOD wasn’t lost).

There is a poem or story about a man on the beach and he looks back at only one set of foot prints in the sand and how GOD has told him that he was always with him. And when God was questioned about the times there was only one set. “Those were the times I carried you was God’s reply.”

Written sometime around my tenth anniversary Jan, 1997