No Dramatic Bottom: Just Thirty-Three Years of Slow Erosion Until Nothing Was Left – Blair A.

And so without further ado, at this time I'd like to introduce our speaker today, the one and only, Blair. Boy, is this going to be fun. That's the most I've ever heard Ralph say. I wanted to hear more about Norm and Lori I thought maybe we could run that out for another 10 minutes I wore my sport coat today because I learned a long time ago, Norm thinks that a speaker if you're asked to speak, you should wear a sport coat but I compromised and wore my jeans also Did I say I'm Blair an alcoholic? Hi Blair Well, I've been confused for a week at least, maybe more like many, many years. And I thought I had my stuff all together this morning as to what I was going to say, and then the announcement just got me all confused all the more. That announcement thing really got my head going. I'm here because of guilt. I've been asked for the last two secretaries, I think starting with Ron. Where did Ron go? To stand up here, and I said, no, I don't do those things. That's one thing I don'T do as public speakers, especially at a podium. Sitting down is a lot better. And then Chris asked me a couple times, andI said, No, I DON'T do that. And then Chuck asked me two weeks ago, and I'd been feeling guilty about it for quite a while, and I thought, well, might as well get this over with. So maybe that's a little bit of growth on my behalf, and thanks to the AA program and the God I have in my life today. I decided I went through a lot of things drunk and a lot OF things with a real bad hangover that I thought I was just going to pass out, and I figured I couldn't feel any worse than some of the days I had to do things the next day after. but anyway and also a couple weeks ago I saw a guy quit about 15-20 minutes early and that gave me some real hope because I'd never seen that before I saw this one lady run over twice two years in a row and I knew that was a no-no and I said well that's not going to be a problem for me anyway but this quitting early I go well now there's a president set here that I can follow if need be alcohol has played an important role goal of my life as far back as I can remember. My earliest memories involved alcoholic behavior. My grandmother was an alcoholic, and her birthday was on the 13th of August. Mine's on the 14th of August, and it seemed like every year my birthday was screwed up because of drinking and started on her birthday, and I continued over to my birthday in the year after, and I didn't like that. And at that time, I thought this alcohol is not a good deal. And I remember most of the things I say today are things that I can think about today that I just blocked out for about 30-some years because I just didn't want to go there. And so most thoughts I have are what I've learned in these meetings and a lot of the terminology I've learnt in the meetings and the thoughts I had is what I'd collected over six years thinking back upon my life. But anyway, and my parents were both alcoholics and somewhere along the road my grandmother sobered up and I knew she was in AA and I didn't understand what AA was about and later on in my life I just blocked out the fact that she was even in AA it just didn't register until after I got here My parents, I remember some good times or not some good time but just some so-so times with their drinking early on as a young child but by the time I got a little bit older I can remember some very bad times And I remember saying to myself, that will never happen to me. And this is before I started drinking. And I said, I will not drink, and alcohol is not a good thing, and this causes all kinds of problems that make me feel bad. Well, somewhere, well, I know where it was. It was my second term of high school. I started thinking about it. And up until that time, all through grade school, I was a good student, quiet, shy, reserved. I was taught to be that way. I was told to just be quiet, don't speak, be a nice boy. And somewhere in that second term of high school, and anyway, I got good grades all through high school just a star student. First term of High School I was on the honor roll. And I got all my report cards, and I got the teacher's comments, and I've got all these things. In that second turn you can just see what alcohol did, and it just went on for 33 more years after that. And, you know, I had peaks and valleys and good times and bad times. But by the time I got out of high school, you can just watch my report cards because you can tell how much I started drinking and how it progressed and so on and so forth. By the time we got out from high school I had to pass English to graduate and I'd had F's all through that senior year and last year I got a D minus. I think she took pity on me. So I did make it out of higher school but I made it out well below an average grade level. I went into I didn't know what I was going to do with my life and so anyway college was a thing for me since I just left high school and almost didn't make it out of that and my buddies were going to college and so I went to one year in one term to Portland State College and that was not for the college that was for the activities that were going on at Portland State at that time and I didn' t know where I was gong anyway I had no direction just didn't have a clue and that second term of college I got married. Actually, I'd gone to sign up. I was going to join the Marines, and I went down, and I took the physical, and I had a fast heartbeat, sort of like what I have today, because when I go into situations like that, my heart beats fast. So I passed all everything, and they said, okay, young man, you go to your doctor and get your heart checked out and come back, and we'll send you off. So I did that, and the doctor says, your heart's fine. He gave me a little thing, and I walked back in, and the Marine says, here I am. I'm on my way, and let's go. Oh, and then I didn't make it to the Marines. I got married instead. And so now here we are, and I'm away from home for the first time, and now I can drink as much as I want to. And I'm 19 years old and my wife's 17. And so that's when the real drinking – well, actually it started before that. But I was free, you know, from the parents and didn't have to worry about anything, and the party began. So at 19 years and two weeks I was a father, and then I had another child about three years later, and I had a few jobs. My first job, my first real job, was working at Owens Illinois' glass factory, and I didn't like that job because every week you changed shifts. One week you worked days, one week swing, one day graveyard, and that did not lead to a good drinking career. The only week you could drink was on the day shift. Some of these, well, most of the guys, they got off work and went to the tavern called the Glass House at 8 o'clock in the morning and started drinking. I tried that a couple times, and that just got me in some big trouble. So I quit that job, and I took another job. And I lasted on that job for seven years. And at the end of that job I was a traveling salesman. and I had an expense account, a company car and I traveled like five states Oregon, Washington, Idaho part of Wyoming and I don't know where all I was at and that was a job for me because I was away Monday through Friday home on the weekends expense accounts stay in the motels and I drank a lot that's the first time you know that I was out on my own and I could drink a lot and I got into some trouble on that job they sent me back east a couple times and I screwed those trips up royally because of drinking. And I didn't make it to where I was supposed to be the next morning. From there, they closed the plant down and I got laid off and didn't know what I was going to do and I ended up in real estate. And I stayed in real state for 27 years. Or I'm still in real estate, I guess maybe. And real estate was a job for me. You didn't have to answer to anybody. There was no checking in. You were just on your own. You could do anything you wanted. You could work when you wanted, you could play when you wanted. And that worked in real good for me. Lots of times I'd start drinking like at noon and drink all night, and then the next day I could sleep in, and this was all still while I was married. You know, and I say I never lost a job because of my drinking, which I, you know, can rationalize that I never did. it. Being in business, actually as a real estate salesman you're basically in business for yourself so it's hard to get fired but I actually did come close to that a couple times and so I decided well this is getting a little scary so I'll go open up my own business which I did. Now during my high school days of drinking, I got ahead of myself there a little didn't I? I was a wild man. Once I started, I was telling you how quiet and shy I was, once I started drinking alcohol. Everything just went sideways. And I was a crazy man, wild man. That alcohol did for me what it got me out of my house. It blocked out the things that I didn't like about my house and I could be whoever I wanted to be. And there's many different people, many different nights. And about the grades, they went down. I started getting minor in possessions. At 16, I got a car. Actually at 15 and a half, I Got a car but I couldn't drive till I was 16. So when I got that car, the party was really on and it just got worse from there. I got DUIs. I lost my license because of drinking and driving at that time way back then and they didn't do it like they do today and it was a lot easier. I went to a class reunion a while back and these guys that I hung out with were all telling me stories. Everyone that came up to me says, do you remember when? And I couldn't even remember half the stories they they would tell them because so many more had been added on to them and they were just irrelevant. But things were not good. So where are we going, where are We're at? When I almost killed myself a couple different times, my children as they were growing up, my children were fully grown and moved out of the house by the time I got sober. And the way I operated the house was you don't mess with me when I'm drinking because I was very volatile and didn't know. In a snap of a finger, I could go off. I could be happy one minute, and just something that didn't relate to anything could set me off. My children saw a bunch of things, you know, that I thought, well, you knows, it's not as bad as what I saw when I was a child. And so I didn't worry about it too much, and this is just the way it is. And, of course, the children are children. They don't have too much say about it. I was the type of guy that would – I didn't really like to go to bars sober, so I drank at home a lot. And if I was in – but what would happen when I would drink at home is that I'd drink there and then I'd get bored and decide I want to go the bar. Many a time, you know, I knew my beer was running low and I'd tell my wife I'm going to the store for a pack of cigarettes, which I would get. and then I'd get a six pack of beer and put it in the car and then i'd head to the bar uh and i wouldn't be home till two o'clock in the morning many a time too i would go well it's going to be shit when i get home so i might as well just keep going um many a night i'd wake up at the beach in my car for some reason i like to drive to the beach in blackouts and i did that many many times and i'd awake up in my card and look around and go where am i at and I could hear the waves, and I'd look up and go, oh no, here we are again. Now I've got to drive home, go tell the wife I was at the beach, and folks, she believed me. Sometimes I was a kid, and sometimes I wasn't. Sometimes I said the beach and sometimes it wasn't at the beach, but I started using that beach thing for a lot of different things. She says, well, I just can't believe that you go to the beach that much, you know. it uh it wasn't a real pretty picture when i look back on it and how she stayed in that marriage or why she stayed that marriage for 23 years i just don't know i thought you know when i got sober i've thought many times when i've got sober there's just no way i could have i could put up with that and uh in sobriety i couldn't put up with a person or being with the person in a in a relationship with the lady that was drinking. I just don't think I'd have the tolerance. There's only one person in this room that even saw a little bit of my drink, and I was thinking about that. I was looking around the room and going, you know, it kind of amazes me because I've been in every bar in this city. I've had a lot of drinks. I've seen every bar here. in Lincoln City. I've done in every part of Seaside and Manzanita and all around this town. And the only person is Art that saw a little bit of my drinking. We worked together in real estate for two or three or four years, and we had a couple crazy times. And I think he has an idea of what it was like for me. What happened was I got divorced, and then that was another stepping stone in my drinking career because now, you know, I was free again. in. And I think I drank for another eight years after I got divorced, seven years after I got divorce. And here I am, 40 years old when I got divorced and I couldn't figure this out. When I first started drinking in my early career days or when I was 19, 20 years old, I was drinking with the older fellas, guys at work and I was drinking with the 40-year-olds. We were going to the bar and drinking, and I didn't enjoy drinking with people my own age. I was on a mission of some sort. So then by the time I reached 40 years old, I'm drinking with The 20-Year-Olds. So I did a complete reversal there. The only thing I can figure out is when I was 20 years old the old drinkers who I thought were old at the time, the 40 year olds, were drinking the way I wanted to drink. By the time it got 40, everyone else smelled bad a little bit and now I'm with the 20 year olds because they're drinking the same way I like to drink And I started hanging out with the fellow who my son went to high school with, who my sun did not – they were buddies, but he knew better than to hang out with this guy because this guy was trouble. And that's what I liked about him. He was a wild man. He was crazy man. And it turned out he was also a cocaine dealer. And at the weekends at his house is where all the action was. And I just stumbled across him one time at the DMV, and the next thing you know I'm hanging out with him for about a year and we're camping together and I'm at his house on the weekends and I just like this action because I can stay there all night, drink, carry on, do whatever. You know, but in the back of my mind I said, you know, I shouldn't be here and then my son was hearing things that he didn't like and I could tell it was embarrassing him a little bit you know that I was hanging out It wasn't just him. I mean, all the kids that my son went to high school with were coming over to this house. And I said to myself, you know, I've got this business. I've Got Things. I've GOT This. I'VE GOT That. I just had in the back of my mind that this place, there was going to be some bad activity in this house one night, such as police coming or whatever because it was just getting worse and worse and somewhere along the road, We just sort of, I quit hanging out there. And about a month or two after, you know, the narcotics squad did come and bust this house down. So I feel fortunate that I wasn't there at the time. There's been many, looking back on my life, there's been mini-mini times that I think someone was watching out for me when I wasn'T doing too good of a job myself. And when I got here, I'd had no, I hadn't had any religious upbringing. bringing. I'd been to church a couple times when I stayed overnight with a friend of mine. They were Catholic and I go to the Catholic church and I didn't understand that. That's when it was all in Latin. But other than that, I'd never gone to church. I never had a God in my life. Just didn't spend any time thinking about it. It wasn't a concept that I worried worried about, but it just wasn't there. One night, about a week before I ended up getting sober, things were coming down bad at my house. I was in a relationship situation, whatever you want to call those things, and it wasn't good. And this whole thing was not good. And then the Saturday night before I got sober, it got kind of bad and had been bad. It had gotten bad before and it was verbal and mental and emotional and physical and it Was a bad situation. And that next morning I woke up and I said, I'm not going to drink again. I think that's one of the few times I'd said that. that. So anyway, I didn't drink until Wednesday. And Wednesday was a company function that I'd been going through for quite a few years and after this function was free alcohol. And I enjoyed it. Any time there was alcohol that was free, I enjoyed that. And there was any kind of alcohol you wanted. So I hadn't drank for four days and that was a long time for me for the 33 years that I drank. And for some reason I started drinking because because I was an alcoholic. That was the reason. Anyway, I started drinking the spree booze that day. This was a Wednesday afternoon about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. And right after I took that first drink, I go, well, what happened to this resolution you made Saturday night that you weren't going to drink anymore because things are getting ugly and you're afraid something really bad is going to happen and it's going to be bad? But then I had a second drink, third drink, fourth drink, and then I went home and I was pretty well lit up by the time I got home. Well, I had roommate living with me. who happened to be my ex-wife's brother, who was sort of the balance in my life for the last couple years because I was a wild man and he was a real quiet, down-to-earth, nice guy. And so, you know, I wouldn't get too far out of line most of the time when he was around. And he came home from work that day and says, You know what? He says, I think I'm going to move out. And I knew why he was moving out. I was in a situation that was going on there during the evenings of the yelling and screaming and fighting and the craziness. And I think that was the moment that a little bit of fear set into me. And anyway, I talked him into having a couple drinks, and he stood there. We sat there in the kitchen and had a few more drinks, and I'd asked him this before. This was a guy I'd helped raise because his parents, his mother passed away and his father went off, and it was my wife's brother, and I helped raise him from the time he was five years old. And I'd asked Bart before, I said, do you think I'm an alcoholic? And he says, no, you just drink a little bit too much and you get kind of crazy. And that's what I wanted to be. I wanted To Be Crazy. And this night when I asked him that, I says, do You think I drink too much? And he said, yeah, I think you're an alcoholic. And that kind of devastated me for Bart to say that because he'd never said that before and I didn't like that word because my parents, I knew, were real alcoholics and I did not think I got that far. Did I fail to mention that my parents died of alcoholism? Yeah, no. Anyway, when I was 30 years old, my father died. It was a real bad scene one night and he ended up in the hospital and he died and it was a direct result of alcoholics. Six months later, my mother ended up in an institution that I'd taken her to, and she died that evening when I took her there. And that was because of her drinking and pill-taking and so forth. So anyway, I knew I wasn't as bad as my parents because they'd been real ugly towards the end of their life. And during the end OF their life, I felt guilt about it, and I felt shame about it. and I just filled all kinds of things, but I was off with my own family and those things happened. So the last six months of my drinking, I kept thinking on getting closer and closer and close to what my parents did about that. And I didn't want my children to go through what I've gone through with my parents as far as the shame and the guilt and everything. I think that was one deciding factor. And I also, every time I drank from the time I was 16 years old, I drove. drove. I can't think of any time that I didn't drive that car and I'd say I would not drive and sure as heck, I'd end up driving and I was afraid I was going to kill someone. I figured out in sobriety how many times I had driven drunk and in blackouts and it was in the thousands and thousands of times. And I was getting, I was starting to hit things and I started to miss things on my car from the night before and I'm starting not to remember I remember if my car was even there, and I'd get up and I looked to see if the car was there, and then it was there and then I'd go back to sleep. And then I had the courage to go out to see anything was missing or if they were dents or anything. So between the guilt of thinking I was going to kill someone because my odds had run out and not wanting my children to go through whatever, and Bart deciding to move out and the situation that had happened four nights before with this lady that I was afraid was going be back and was going ugly again. somewhere during my stupor i said to bart well what should i do and he said something about a tree i'm not really sure how this whole conversation came down but i ended up in the treatment center that night and bart didn't want to take me in and we ended up on seaside and how we ended up on sea side i'mnot sure except they knew i liked the beach uh and he called this other buddy of mine that i drank with a big guy because part wasn't a big man anyway they They were both available that night, and they were willing, and I was willing, and we got in the car, and I had my half a gallon of bourbon, and I Was already drunk. And they drove me down there in my car. And they dropped me off. And I woke up the next morning and realized after about 15 minutes laying in this bed where I was at and what happened, I just vaguely remembered a little bit. And that was the start of my sobriety and I haven't drank since. but what happened in that treatment center you know i went in that treatment center thinking i knew everything that there wasn't any fact of life i didn't know about i was running my life just fine i was one of my kids life's just fine the ex-wife i was taking care of her life i thought too keeping her straightened out everyone that i worked with i had the answers and after I sobered up in that treatment center got over that hangover something clicked and it dawned on me that here's the way of life that I had no idea about it wasn't a concept how did I miss it I wasn't as smart as I thought I was what I thought was important in my life wasn't that important and it filled up a hole in me that I had there and couldn't figure out what the heck it was and I've heard other people talk about this whole I just felt something was missing in my life all the time even though I might have had some material things or I might've had a family or I'd have had this, I just thought something was missing. Well in that treatment center I became teachable and I also had a spiritual awakening and I aussiad a spiritual experience and neither one of those did I know what they were and I never even heard the terminology technology. Anyway, these things happened to me and I happened to be talking to a lady that worked in that treatment center and was telling her what was going on. She says, well, you had a spiritual experience. I says, what the hell is a spiritual experience? And she says, Well, this is what it is and all this other stuff. Next night, I'm telling her about some other how I was thinking. She says Well, you also you have spiritual awakening ago when you said I, you know, what the heck is the difference between a spiritual awakening and a spiritual appearance? So she explained them to me. And I had to go down there about four nights in a row to get that straightened out because i still did not understand what the difference was and actually i didn't understand that real clear in my mind it's clear in mine now and i'm not even sure if it's the right but to me it is i never really understood that for about a year after i got sober but i was so beat up when i got into treatment center mentally physically um i was just wiped out and what i'd done when these two guys took me down there i said if you tell anyone where i'm at And I didn't tell him the reason I was going into hiding. But I told him, if you tell anyone where I'm at, we'll get you. I'll get ya when I get out of here. Bart went home and he never slept one wink that night. He thought I was... That's the truth. I found that out a couple weeks later. He thoughtI was gonna be out of there that night and get back to Portland somehow. So anyway, I woke up and I go, well, this isn't good. I got a business. I signed checks. I got this. No one knows where I'm at." And I said, I've got to make a phone call. They said, well, we don't – our policy is you can't make a phone call until we tell you to make the phone call, and one of the prerequisites for making a phone calls, you've got to memorize first three steps, and I says, well that's a piece of cake. I'm a pretty smart guy. I can memorize three sentences, and they started memorizing those three sentences – the first three steps – and I couldn't memorize them, and fear set in. I go, damn, I lost my mind. and i'd watch my parents do that and i watched their eyes get all glassy to where they're glazed over and i washed them turn yellow and then i watched i mean it was just something i didn't know about and today i believe it was like wet brain syndrome or whatever and i didn't even know what that was at the time my parents were going through that i couldn't get those first three steps memorized four or five days later i still couldn't memorize them they did allow me me to make a phone call out of there before that happened. But I think that scared me very, very bad. I thought something really happened here to my head and my brain, and you know, I might not be the same. But anyway, in that treatment center, I saw people coming in after me, and I saw the changes in them in just a matter of two or three days. I don't know exactly why that was, but somewhere in there, I got a ray of hope that things would would be okay for me. And I just became a sponge for this way of life and this thinking and basically what it was, was the 12 steps, but I didn't even know it was the twelve steps. And I wanted to learn everything I could. I came out of that treatment center believing in a higher power for the best I could in that short amount of time. Came out of there feeling great felt that i didn't my everything was answered in my life i hadn't drank for a month which was something i never thought possible actually the compulsion had left to drink and i never got that possible i'd eaten right for 30 days so i was feeling good physically and i was just feeling the best i'd ever felt that I could ever remember and that lady when I left there she said I don't hold much hope for you staying sober because you drank for so long and because of the way you were and the way your stage of alcoholism she says besides that or something else it's probably just as bad if not worse is she says you have no feelings and she'd been working on that the whole 30 days I was in there she says you havenofeelings and I don't think you're going to get feelings. And she says, that's probably worse than being an alcoholic. And she wrote a little report and she says what are you going to do when you get out of here? And I said, I don' know, I'm just going to be happy and joyous and free because I feel so good right now. And she said, well how about going to meetings? I said I don''t need meetings. I said it just feels wonderful. So anyway, I made a commitment to her to go three meetings a week for like a month or two months or whatever I'm not sure exactly the commitment I made to her. I got out of that treatment center, and I'd had my car dropped off. There's also a bunch of other things. Man, I'm going. I can go 45 minutes, can't I? I've got a long ways to go, andI only got 10 minutes left. What's going on here? My son had come down to the treatment center every Saturday on family day. My daughter came up from California, came down to treatment center one day, one week, and this relationship lady that I was in, she was there every Saturday. And I did amends with all of them different weeks. So anyway, coming out of that treatment center, also I should say, you know, they say you've got to remember your last drunk, and I don't see how I could forget that because it got me sober. But I also feel very, very strong in my heart that if I had waited, it just all happened that night. It was like I was zoomed down to that treatment center. Because I know if I'd have waited the next morning and I'd woke up, I would never have ended up in that treatment centre because I was too important of a guy and I had too much to do and I hade this business to run and I would be hungover and I was sick and I never got there. So my last drunk basically got me sober, and for that I'm grateful. So now I come out of that treatment cellar and I've had things to do. I've been backed up for a month and everything was going sideways and I hae a convention in Las Vegas in three days. I had to get two that I'd already paid for, and once I pay for something, I like to use the money. But I'd also been to these conventions before with my son who also works with me and it was not too much convention, a whole lot of party. But I was feeling so good, I said this isn't going to be a problem, let's go. So I went to that convention in Las Vegas three days out of the treatment center and everything was just fine. And I thought well here's a test and this worked well so you know everything's good. and I also right after I got back from Las Vegas had a DUI ticket thing situation that I'd been working that had happened the year before that didn't even slow down my drinking and I had to go to court on that and as that turns out I ended up in a jury trial for two days and got off as not guilty even though I'd blown in breathalyzer as drunk and that wasn't a real honest thing and I weighed that around a little bit and said, bullshit, I'm going to go in there and try and get off this thing because I needed my driver's license. This was my second one, and I didn't want to lose my driver'S license for five years. So anyway, that worked out real well. It was also when I was back in treatment, they found out that I had a DUI going, and that isn't the reason I went to treatment. They came to me, and they said, you know, maybe you want to get out of here. And I said, why is that? And they go, we understand you're going to court on DUI here in a month or so. And I says, yeah, that's right. And they said, well, this treatment center isn't accredited to take care of that if they send you to a treatment center. And I said, that's not why I'm here and I don't want to leave. And they say, well you can go to treatment centers that you know, you'll get credit for that for your DUI. And I say, that is not it and I am not leaving and don't try and get rid of me. One other time they tried to get rid off me too because the night I came in there I had written them a check. And that check didn't clear because they couldn't read the signature and they couldn' t find out who was made out to and I'd signed an IOU also and they said you're going to have to re-sign this because this doesn't even look like you and it didn't I looked at that signature and said this is a bad deal so anyway it took me about a month to start going to meetings and they had suggested that I go to the grotto meeting or they said it was a good meeting it was close to where I lived and it worked out good because of my schedule I could go up there and I started going there and the second time I walked in that meeting I ran into a fellow that I used to drink with in high school, and we had a bunch of same acquaintances, and he sort of took me under his wing and made everything good for that first year. Answered a lot of my questions, and I knew if he could stay sober, I could stay sober. There's also one other fellow that went to that meeting on a regular basis who actually started that meeting. I knew him from high school and I know what he was like, and I thought if these two guys can stay sober you know I can stay sober even though I didn't think I needed AA meetings. But I started going to that grotto meeting, and I never missed that meeting for two years. I just blocked it out, and then I went to that meeting. I went on the weekends and during the week. And I do today believe that helped me stay sober. I don't think I was as wonderful as I thought I was when I first got out of the treatment center. And so I learned how to live life, and that was something I'd never done without drinking. I'd Never Done Anything Without Drinking. My kids' birthday, funerals, weddings. weddings. My son got married when I was drinking and that was a wild thing and I was like in charge of the alcohol. And the guys, made sure the guys were wild and crazy like me and then I wouldn't look so bad. Since I've been sober, you know, I've learned how to live life. I've gone through quite a few deaths, people in AA, family members, my father-in-law who was just like a father he passed away his son passed away at 40 of cancer and I watched that take place and him and I were drinking buddies my daughter got married in sobriety I think it was about two years sober down in California I went to that there was drinking at that wedding and that wedding was not like my son's wedding where I was in charge of the alcohol this thing I told her I didn't have anything to do with that alcohol go have it if you want it And don't feel bad if you want to drink. But they didn't drink like they did at my son's wedding. And I didn't drinking. My whole way of thinking and my way of life is so totally different today that, you know, I sit and I think and I'm truly amazed from what my thinking for all those years was and the way I acted and the things I did and what I thought I wanted to be and how I wanted to go out of this life. Where I thought I was going to go out of my life I was in this life was I was gonna get killed some night in a bar because I was obnoxious, wild, crazy and I shouldn't have been in some of the places I was at. And I thought that would be the way to do it. The kids would know that their dad was a real hero and a real wild man. And all the things I showed my children And during my drinking, my son and I started drinking together when he was about 18. We used to hunt, fish, camp, play, corrals, everything, drinking. And I thought this is cool. This is what a father should be. My father was so far in his alcoholism, he couldn't get to that, and I didn't want to hang out with him anyway. But I thought, this is what the father does. He shows his son how to be wild and crazy and do all these things. during my years as those children were being raised anytime I went anywhere I always had alcohol in the car we'd go on our family trips we'd going vacations we go to Sun River every month and they would be my little bartenders I have my little six-pack here they'd open the bottle they give it to me I passed back the empty they stick it in there and give me another one all the way until we got to the trip when we had parties they were the bartenders and this just just was cool to me. Just totally cool. And I look back in sobriety and go, look at the message you gave these grown kids of yours. And for the first couple years, you know, I felt bad about that because I'm going here, I did this complete turnaround and now I'm giving a mixed message and maybe I should have stayed the way I was so I don't give mixed messages in life. And today, I don' t feel that way, you Because I think they've seen a difference in me. I know they've seeing a difference in me and a change in me and my son does not drink the way he used to drink. He still drinks and I don't get on him for drinking. If he wants to drink, that's fine. I worry about him a lot as far as his drinking because I've seen him and I know what he does and I do and we're very much alike. But he seems to have a better grip on it or a little bit more control or whatever but I worry about that knowing what I know today. I went down to California a couple of years ago to make amends. Well, I went to visit my daughter-in-law there and I decided to make some amends and that didn't go too well. And I'd made the amends in the treatment center and I thought everything was done and forgiven and she was just happy, which she is happy and she's proud. They're both proud of me. My son has told me before, he says, I don't think I could quit drinking. He says, i just don't know how you do it. That didn't got too well with my daughter in California. and then after that we worked on it a little bit more, and she went and got some outside counseling. Basically what I said was, I'm sorry in the past is the past, and here I am, and I'm sober now, and we'll all be happy. And she says, Not quite. She says, I love you, and she's crying, and I're happy that you're sober. That's all good. But I've got all these issues. I go, Shit! And we'd had these talks in sobriety before, you know. Oh, it was just a mess. and I did that an hour before I had to catch the plane and so I left there and she was a mess and I'm a mess and anyway, I got back and anyway I just went down there over Christmas again this time and she's worked out these things and I've seen her many times since then and I keep asking are you sure you got this worked out? Are you sure your family feel good about all this? She says yeah, yeah it's all gone got it all worked out and I just go I don't know about that shit but they're moving into another house down there and it's got this little poop-dee-doo apartment down in the basement, and she's been trying to get me to California. She says, why don't you come down here and move in with us and live with us and all this and check this area out, and you'd like it down here. And every time I go to California, I just can't wait to get out of there. But I think that was nice for her to offer that, you know. And I stayed there like seven nights this time, and usually one night with my daughter is usually enough for me. My children, through all the stuff they saw and the messages I was giving them, have both turned out to be very – I'm proud of them, and they've turned out better than what I would expect it. Even though there might be some hidden things there that I realize today and they might crop up in the future. But I am so grateful for sobriety and this different way of living and the chance to make some of these amends and these repairs that I did to my children and to other people that I never got to work out with my parents at all. And, you know, it just made a change in my life. I did go to the ex-wife one time and said, you now, maybe we should go to lunch someday and she didn't know why that was. And I says, you call me because you've got a busy schedule and I'm very flexible. I says we'll just go to brunch. I'd like to talk to you. And so she says, yeah, okay, I'll do that. I'll be calling you just real soon. and she calls up my daughter and says what's wrong with your father is he dying does he have an illness and that was like over a year ago and she's never called me and we've never quite got that worked out yet but sobriety has been very very good to me very good and I realize or I think My thinking today is that people have been put into my lives, at different times in my life, to teach me lessons. I remember just before, within the six months after I got sober, I was going through a box of my grandmother's stuff. She finally passed away. After my parents passed away, I helped take care of her. And then she passed away and I had these boxes. And one night drunk, I decided to go through these boxes and I can remember seeing all this AA stuff in there and I was just tossing that shit. Well, look at all this alcoholic stuff. And I'm a drunkard, heck, just sorting through and throwing all this stuff in the garbage can. And I ended up with one grapevine from 1947 or 53 or whatever that was in there. And every time I see one of those first editions of the big book, that cover looks so familiar, that red and yellow and everything, and I just know I threw one of these things in. But, you know, I think in sorting through that stuff, I like to think that maybe something and maybe someone's looking down on me And then this thing happened, and I got the treatment. Then I got sober, and then the compulsion left, and I'm still sober today, and I don't have the composure. My life's changed, and everything, you know, and there's been other situations where people have been putting my lives to where I think it's been for the good, some for the bad, some to learn lessons, some that help me be happy. And that's the way I look at things today. And I never looked at that any way like that before. I was the controller. ruler. I was the higher power for anyone around me. And, you know, I just had control of everything. So I thought and looking back, I know I didn't. So I thank you for letting me speak. I hope it made a little bit of sense. I hope maybe, you know, someone could have got something out of that. I'd often thought, you know, if I did not want to speak here, but if I did speak here I wanted to speak when the treatment was here because for some reason I like to relate and I'd like to get into more of what happened to me in that treatment center. And I don't like to come before all you old-timers and you critiquers and everything, you know. And a couple times last month or two or three months ago, the speaker didn't show up for two weeks. And I was sitting there when he didn't shows up, and I thought, well, now this would be a good time just to raise my hand and say I'll tell my story today so I wouldn't have to think about it for a week or two weeks or whatever or any part of the morning or night before or you're new to sleep and all that stuff. But anyway, thank you.