“Hello. my name is Don and I’m an alcoholic.
I took my first drink when I was very young. I was born in upstate New York. We lived in a town called Remsen, it was well known for what they called Field Days. It was an all-night, all-weekend, fast-pitch softball tournament with amusements, beer tents, and steamed clams. I was about three years old and my aunt would give me drinks of her beer. Every time she would get a new beer, she would give me some. So after a while you could imagine how a young kid would end up!
We moved to Western Pennsylvania, to a town called Big Beaver, just north of Pittsburgh near the Ohio line. I had a good childhood: My parents were together, my father worked for US Air as an aircraft mechanic, and my mother was a stay-at-home mother. I have two siblings: a younger sister and brother. We got along but since I was the oldest, I was out a lot.
It wasn’t until I was in junior high that I really started playing with pot, hash, and beer. I would smoke in the morning before school and drink on occasion after school. When I entered my freshman year in high school is when my drinking started to accelerate. There was a mom-and-pop bar that one of my friend’s uncles owned that would fill empty gallon milk jugs with beer for two dollars. We would have seven or eight milk jugs with us. We would skip school and go down by the river to drink and get high. For my sophomore through my senior year, it was an every-weekend thing, starting on Fridays during high school football games. We would all get picked up in our buddy’s 1971 VW Bug, we called it the Bish Bar drug bug, because he had alcohol and weed always in his car. We would go up to this field before the games. sit, drink, and get high, then all pile back in his car to go to the football game. On weekends. I would make runs to Ohio to get beer and hard liquor for everyone because I turned 18 before everyone else and that was the legal drinking age in Ohio.
After high school is when I knew that it was starting to take control of me. I would work pumping gas at a gas station – just enough to supply money for my drinking and smoking for the weekend. I would drink bottles of Southern Comfort, Yukon Jack, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Mezcal Tequila. I won the contest on who would get to the agave worm!
Drinking the hard liquor is what started to get me in trouble, I would try to start fights with anyone that would look at me the wrong way! I won some but also lost some! The ones that I lost, I was not smart enough to let it go and I lost again!! I played softball with the local VFW and I remember a couple times getting so wasted on the hard liquor before softball games that they would not let me play. Well, that pissed me off and I started a fight with the coach of the team, which is a good friend of mine! Thank God we didn’t fight because he would have probably killed me! I think that was the day I realized I needed to stop the hard stuff and stick to the beer.
When I drank beer, I was a happy drunk – not the mean, wanting-to-fight-everyone-for-just-looking-at-me-the-wrong-way drunk. Two of the players on the team were Navy recruiters and they saw how I was. I think they waited to catch me sober to talk to me about possibly getting my stuff together by joining the world’s best NAVY! That was all well and good to talk to me sober, problem was, I was never sober enough to think or talk rationally enough about my life in the present, let alone the future! The way I was living my life then, I was either going to get myself killed by someone beating the living s— out of me or driving drunk and killing myself or someone else.
Which brings me to the close calls I had when a bunch of us drove to Myrtle Beach for a week. I drove my 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo and my buddy drove his Mustang II. On the way down, we got stopped by cops, who found pot in his car. Luckily for me, I had nothing, but I was pretty wasted still. However, they didn’t come to my car because they had stopped him. On the home, we smoked and drank the whole way to Pennsylvania. I got back, dropped my friends off, and headed home. I was going the back roads to avoid the highway in case any cops were around.
Well, I went down this road, I don’t know if I passed out or fell asleep, but I hit a parked car. The impact of it woke me up. I panicked, left the scene, and drove to this girl’s house. That was all well and good, but I didn’t realize that, when I hit the parked car, I had blown my tire and bent the rim. I drove like that for three miles to her house. That three miles of driving seemed like 300. I got to her house, told her what had happened, and she convinced me to call the cops and tell them what had happened. She took me back where I had hit the parked car. The cop that shows up is best friends with my girlfriend’s dad, knows me well, and likes me! The owner of the car was outside and said there was no damage to his car, so he was not going to press charges. Well, two things I think went against me: one, I knew the cop and the cop knew and thought I was a good kid, and, two, the owner of the car I hit was not going to press charges so I was let off with nothing… not even a warning! So, I figured I was untouchable and could get away with anything while I was drinking, and I did get away with everything because I knew everyone, which was probably not the best thing for me!
One day after work, I stopped into the VFW to have a drink in a calm, non- violent place, if you remember from earlier, there were two guys on my softball team that were Navy recruiters. Well, they walked in and saw that I was in a different form than they had seen me in the past, and I was somewhat sober enough to talk to them. After a couple hours of talking to them, they convinced me to join the Navy. I figured if I got out the atmosphere I was in, I would stop the drinking and get on with my new life in the Navy.
I joined the Navy Jan 28, 1991. and went to Great Lakes, Illinois, for boot camp. After boot camp, I went to my first school, in Millington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis. It was probably not the best place for me to be because it was just like being at home again! It was a small town with three mom-and-pop bars and strip clubs. So. now, I am continuing where I left off in Pennsylvania, with my drinking and causing trouble. The Dodge Daytona I had wrecked at home is now fixed and my parents drove it to Tennessee for me so I had a car to drive! Probably not the best thing either.
I went out with some friends barhopping and when we went through the front gate to get back to the barracks when I got pulled over for swerving. The MP’s gave me a field sobriety test that I passed, and so they had no reason to give me a breathalyzer. I was released to go back to my room and stay there for the night. Well, I didn’t stay in my room. I went out the back gate and continued my night of drinking.
Another incident I had was in another car I bought – a 1987 Chrysler LeBaron Turbo. After a long night of drinking. the next morning my roommate and I went out. I was hit broadside by a truck! I was knocked unconscious and woke up in the hospital in Memphis. No charges were filed by the police, and I didn’t get into any trouble with the Navy, even though I had a high blood alcohol content and was driving without insurance. So that is like five or six times I should have been arrested or disciplined for drinking and I didn’t! There were many other incidents where I should have gotten into trouble with the law or the Navy and I didn’t. If, just once, I would have gotten a wake-up call maybe I would have stopped.,.. but I didn’t!
I retired from the Navy in 2010 after 20 years of service. I had a lot of close friends in the Navy, but, when I retired, depression really started to set in. The only thing I knew to do was to drink to mask the depression. I drank so much that I ruined two marriages and lost close contact with my oldest daughter as well as my two younger kids. I got remarried in 2008. This habit went on for a year or two after retirement I was lost without the people I had spent the last 20 years of my life with I didn’t know how to act.
I rode Harleys, so I looked up local motorcycle clubs and joined one. This made my life a little more bearable because it was like being in the military again, with the comradery, and I felt alive again! It also accelerated my drinking during events that I would attend, which was not good!
I think from 2020 till Oct 20, 2022, was the worst of my drinking. I was employed by American airlines and, in 2020, they were doing cutbacks due to COVID. I was on vacation, and, when I returned, I was let go due to the drawbacks. It sounds bad, but really it wasn’t. Yes, I wasn’t working, but I was still getting my full pay and benefits due to the payroll protection plan. All well and good, but I just got a free pass to drink every day, all day. and be at the campground in Wildwood, New Jersey, in the heart of summer with my motorcycle. How good is that!! I started with 15 packs a day but it slowly moved up to 30 a day every day for about two years. I had gotten my job back in 2021 with no loss of seniority and actually had gotten a raise so that worked out well. So from 2020 until Oct 2022, I was drinking an average of 15 to 30 beers a day everyday!
It got so bad that I was drinking to stay alive and not for the enjoyment. On Oct 18, 2022, I made the decision to get help. I checked myself into detox at Amethyst! I was on a plane Oct 20 and started my first day of sobriety on Oct 21. I then went to Foundations, and you can’t ask for a better treatment center!
To the day I write this, Feb 1 2023, I have hit 0.28 years, 3.36 months, 103 days, and 2,476 hours of sobriety
After looking back at all the close calls I’ve had, and how many times I was let go without being arrested or even getting a citation, I should not be here! I could have killed myself or someone else! If I only would have had been arrested and put in jail, or even cited for drinking and driving, maybe it would have opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself!” – February 21, 2023
