It was 50 years ago when I logged my first drunk. On New Year’s Eve, 1973, my parents hosted a huge gathering of neighbors and Navy friends at our home in Kailua, HI. I was 14 years old. As an altar boy sneaking sips of communion wine and stealing beers from the family fridge had been ongoing for a couple years, but this was my first full-blown experience that included a cute crush that lived across the street, a fully stocked bar selection on the kitchen countertop, bad dancing, a spinning bed, projectile vomiting (multiple), and a sincere wish for me to die right there and then.
When I came to the next morning my father had taped a news article to my bedroom mirror about a 17-year-old boy who had died from alcohol poisoning. That would be my first ‘lecture’ on drinking. It landed less as a “Just say no” abstinence message and more of a, “Don’t embarrass your mother and me” moderation reproach. I don’t know if I had followed either road I would be the man I have become today as alcoholism is the gift that keeps on giving. As I approach the 36-year mark of continuous sobriety I am steeped deep in gratitude and awe for how far I have come as a man. I have died a thousand deaths to get where I am today.
In my view my alcoholism kicked in about three days after the New Year’s Eve blowout: While most people would swear off alcohol for years, if not ever, following an event such as this, I rationalized it as, “With all the shame and trouble my drinking brought me that night, it was a pretty small price to pay for how good it made me feel.”
And that’s the story I told myself until getting sober in January 1988. While the feats and the consequences got heavier and heavier over the years, the equation still seemed to balance. The damage was always a small price to pay for how good the drink made me feel. Alcohol quickly became my secret mistress, the reason I worked hard, played hard, and sought external validation so I could earn the grace of drinking without judgment. Success in the classroom and in sports was a brilliant veil for masking the truth of my inner vision; I liked drinking and I liked being drunk.
From the outside, my resumé showed success in football, and track, along with grades good enough to gain acceptance to the U.S. Naval Academy. It also got me out of a few jams I probably shouldn’t have. Two nights before high school graduation, I totaled the family car, a Toyota station wagon, while blacked out. I came down from the Maunawili development on the Kailua side of the Pali Highway. I crossed over the 4 lanes, clipped the median strip, and snapped the front axle in half. The car came to rest on the far side of the westbound lanes, stuck in the mud. The responding officers were graduates of my high school and recognized my name from our football team. They simply called my dad to come pick me up; nothing was ever said or heard of after that. I’ve always felt a little more than lucky having survived my high school drinking career in Hawaii.
Off to Annapolis where the rigors of Naval Academy training coupled with knee injuries would give me plenty of nervous inactivity and rationalization to overdrink. While I do hold a dubious achievement of receiving 3 Black N’s for major conduct violations (all, wait for it, were alcohol-related). I also got my first medical data point that I might have a problem. In those days the wisdom around the veteran Main Office “Restrictee” community was to voluntarily go see Commander Jay Brunza. He would hypnotize offenders and then set them up to go to a weekly AA meeting. (Brunza, I’d learn later, was a friend of Tiger Woods’ dad, and was Tiger’s first psychology coach.) The result was 6 AA meetings that I found fascinating, but once my time on restriction was up, I dismissed it as an interesting learning opportunity. I would go on for years making such asinine comments as, “I know I’m not an alcoholic because I’ve been to AA and know I don’t belong.”
Karma really is a bitch with a salty sense of humor.
I ran through more than my share of roommates and relationships while teetering on the verge of academic probation. Then I wrecked another car the first weekend of Senior Year while on a liberty trip to Rutgers University. Again, the police officer gave me the old military secret handshake and I went about my life. I’ve always felt a little more than lucky having survived my Naval Academy drinking career.
Upon graduation and marriage in 1981 to my bride, Leigh, I buckled down and worked my way into professional success that included three deployments with combat operations and Cold War brinksmanship, and finally selected to serve as an Admiral’s Aide. My professional success was generally able to keep my drinking escapades in the shade. I totaled a third vehicle, a rental car in Naples, Italy, with the Commanding Officer and two other officers from the wardroom in the car. Once again, it seemingly pays to know people who kept me out of trouble. My luck ran out (or just began?) in January 1988 when I totaled my fourth vehicle resulting in my first (and only) DUI arrest while serving as Aide to RADM Robert Phillips. I was removed immediately from the Aide position and given the choice to go to rehab or be discharged from the Navy.
About 45 minutes into the in-take process of the 42-day drug and alcohol rehab program at Bethesda Naval Hospital, the sum experience of my relationship with alcohol unfolded into a moment of clarity where I realized I had long had this problem I couldn’t control. I muttered to myself, “I belong here.” I’ve always felt a little more than lucky having survived my post-wedding drinking career.
My recovery has been marked with ups, downs, and sideways swipes. Alcoholism may seem like a strong word to tag on a Catholic school eighth-grader’s first bender, until, that is, I dared to redefine alcoholism for me as “I have problems when I drink.” This really simplified the solution by asking myself the question as to whether alcohol provided me a net benefit or a net loss, to the quality of my life. For me, it was clearly a net loss.
Over the past 36 years, I’ve navigated career changes, cancer, chemotherapy, floating near bankruptcy, multiple mental health challenges, a pandemic, an insurrection, and raising two teenagers without drinking booze. The wisdom and lessons from the 12-step way of life I’ve picked up in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous have been incredibly influential across all areas of my life. I am beyond blessed. The 12 steps have given me the tools and courage to trust my own instincts and to move forward with what I believe is the best path for me. I am not saying it has been easy or smooth sailing at every turn, but it has worked.
While irresponsible drinking is easily identified as a major cause of certain societal problems, the root causes of the drinking are not so easily identified. Excessive drinking is merely a physical symptom of deeper emotional maladies for which the AA method prescribes a spiritual solution. The spiritual solution prescribed by the 12 Steps cannot cure every root cause, but it does get us on the right track to remove alcohol abuse from the equation. If I can’t keep alcohol out of the equation, I can’t work on the other areas. One area of reflection I’ve had is that of my mental health. Like Bill. W, the co-founder of AA whose storied battle with depression could only be addressed with outside help after more than 20 years of continuous sobriety, I too have had to deal with both my own depression and anxiety. My journey has included seeking outside help including psychotherapy, group therapies, healing ceremonies, as well as the prescribed medications Wellbutrin, Zoloft, and Ativan. While the medications were effective for managing my work life, keeping me emotionally stable between 4 and 7 on a scale of 10, I wasn’t fully experiencing life and all its emotions. The downside of these meds for me is they severely dampened my emotional experiences, and specifically, negatively affected my creativity, empathy, and sex drive.
These conditions may have never brought me to the brink of drinking again, but they did affect my well-being and suitability as a productive member of society. Even when alcohol is removed from the equation, self-esteem doesn’t always rise to meet the challenges when learning to live life on life’s terms. At the end of 2019, I retired and have continued to work on a care plan addressing these root causes. With a deep sense of gratitude, I am grateful to share that I now take none of the above-mentioned psych medications.
Another point of reflection is the area of opioids and other addictive painkillers. While some people (me included at one point) tend to believe that an alcohol addiction must mean an automatic addiction to pain meds. I can safely and confidently report that with the 6 knee surgeries (including two total knee replacements), gall bladder removal, and cancer biopsies I have not, fortunately, experienced the “cross-addictions” so many people have.
As my spiritual path is inextricably intertwined with my recovery journey, it bears a brief discussion. Raised in the Roman Catholic tradition that included 6 years of Catholic schooling along with another 4 years of catechism. Looking back, any religious piety I had developed fell off the cliff as my alcoholism took off. When Leigh and I were getting ready to wed we met with a priest to discuss our different faiths (Leigh was raised in a protestant tradition). While marrying a protestant wasn’t “ideal”, we were given the options for either Leigh to convert to Catholicism, or she could sign a contract with the church agreeing to raise our children in the Catholic faith. As I was entering a career in the Navy and would likely be gone, like my father who was away 8-9 months a year, the daily religious rearing would be primarily handled by her. This seemed impractical and the decision was easy for me, though I dreaded notifying my father. Despite Dad’s profound disappointment I followed my gut and chose for me to convert to Lutheranism so we had a family system in place that we could have faith be a team sport as we raised our children.
After I got sober in 1988, 7 years after our wedding, I tried reconnecting with my Catholic faith after accepting an invitation to a Cursillo 3-day retreat. It was a deeply moving experience that led me to attend daily mass for the following 9 months. Ultimately, I found the spiritual support in AA to be much better suited for me than with my newfound Catholic searchers, and I replaced morning mass with my return to morning AA meetings.
I’ve died a thousand deaths to get where I am today. It’s only by shedding, by killing off the older, outdated versions of me, that I can then grow and find a core of contentment within me I never knew existed, teaching me to trust my gut and live my life in the best way I can. Old habits and thought patterns which may worked previously, but no longer serve me, can be discarded. The cherry on the icing is that I am fully committed to the notion that when I do the work on myself to heal, my family also heals. All the effort I once put into my career to support my family financially now goes toward into healing myself, and healing my family. I’ve died a thousand deaths to get where I am today, and I hope I have another thousand deaths in me to go. But it will only work by not taking a drink, one day at a time.
By the Numbers (~):
Years Active Alcoholic: 15
Years Sober: 36
Holy Communion: 270
Tabs of Ativan: 45
Tabs of Zoloft: 460
Tabs of Welbutrin: 1,270
AA Meetings: 5,000+
Psychedelic Assist Therapy: 36
Psychotherapy: 150
tongonpig 