JAIL #2

Being addicted to alcohol isn't all 'fun' at Rehabs, you know the daily basketball or softball and bullshitting around in lectures or group sessions.  Most of us have at least 1 stint in jail.  Two of the hallmarks of the addiction disease are:  1) we cannot stop after 1 or 2 drinks and 2) we do really stupid, sometimes insane things while under the influence.  I use the term 'under the influence' instead of drunk, because sometimes after just a few drinks, not even at the  0.08 blood-alcohol content, we can do these out-of-character things.

Jail #2, was in Atlanta, in December 2005.  Without too much background, just the facts, for some reason the cops there didn't like me.  In my defense, the Atlanta and DeKalb County cops are known to have a few rogues in the force.  Unfortunately, I had to deal with some of these rogues.  And as I'll discuss, the fact that they were on a 'rogue' mission out to my house at 11:30 p.m. one Tuesday night in December is what saved me from being convicted or even going to a preliminary hearing for 2 serious felonies.

So, getting to the point, my wife is out of town with my son, and I'm home drinking and cleaning some of my guns for storage in the attic.  I would not bring any guns inside the house while my son was home, he was only 2 at the time and it's just not a good idea in my opinion to have guns in the open with a kid in the house.  Even with no ammo.  I did always have a hidden pistol for protection, it was hidden inside a fake clock on the TV room wall, with the clip out of the gun but inside this fake clock.


And so, I'm on the TV room couch and cleaning this particular gun, it's a Romanian copy of the AK-47, it's technically called a WASR-10 (photo at right).  It functions the same as an AK but it's not fully automatic.  And I'm drinking beer, and maybe around 10 or 10:30 pm I just fell asleep or passed out.  I was definitely under the influence.  And at 11:30, I didn't know the time when it happened I'm woken up by this pounding on the door.  It wasn't a light 'rapping' as one opposing counsel wrote.    There was a Metro stop 10 minutes away, just bordering what we'd call 'urban areas'.  The neighbor to the left, between my house and Emily's  (Emily of the 'Indigo Girls' click here to see her on Letterman)  had a bicycle stolen out of his locked garage, and maybe 7 houses to the left, that neighbor told me recently he'd had 10 break-ins in the past few years.  This pounding on the door continued, again this was not knocking or a doorbell ringing, it was loud and forceful.  And I woke up, and heard men talking.  And I'm thinking,
someone is trying to break in.  Really, at no time in my life has anyone ever banged on my door late at night.  And my neighborhood has experienced several burglaries in recent months.  It was a typical Atlanta suburban neighborhood, mostly attorneys and CDC scientists and doctors, even Emily, a Grammy-winning musician, who lived 2 doors down, click here to see Emily on 'Leno'.

So yeah, of course banging on the door and men talking, even a flashlight shining through the window, I'm thinking someone's gonna break in.  And I called 911.  The 911 dispatcher was kinda confused too, but after 7 minutes, she' radioing the cops on her beat, and all the while more pounding on my door, and my WASR-10 is setting on my TV room coffee table.  And I'm getting agitated and tell the 911 dispatcher that I have an AK-47, and I'm gonna use it if these guys break in.  I was under-the-influence but lucid and fluent, it was the adrenalin thing, it sobers you up really quickly.  And I remember this very clearly, almost 10 years later.  I'm thinking I need to tell that I'm armed with this gun, although I was going for my hidden pistol while talking, and putting in the clip, but I said AK-47, who knows why, maybe if I fired off all 6 rounds and missed I'd grab the WASR-10 and fake the criminals out although it had no ammo.  So if the cops responded and see a guy with a weapon resembling an AK-47, I'm thinking yeah they'll know I'm the homeowner.  It was a confusing thing, being woken up late at night in these conditions and my mind simply flooded with adrenalin and so I just reacted to the situation.

It turns out, the dispatcher told me after 9 or 10 minutes, there were not some criminals outside but 2 local cops who she said were there to 'talk to me'.  Yeah, right, some cops decide at 11:30 pm on a Tuesday they needed to 'talk to me'.  So, I got really angry now, the adrenalin was flowing, and told her I'm not coming to the door late at night to talk to any cops.  She never mentioned any warrants or summons, only they were there to 'talk to me'.  I said some profanities, exactly which ones I forget but told the 911 dispatcher that these cops better get off my property since I'm 'locked and loaded'.

I hung up.  I probably drank a couple of beers, then went back to sleep.

And the next day, being hung over, I called in to work and told my boss I was sick.  And just watched TV all day.  It was December 7, 'Pearl Harbor Day', and I remember watching the History Channel all day.  And I really didn't think much of the previous night's visit by the cops.  Anyway, I drank beer all day, and around 4 pm went upstairs to take a shower, and fell asleep in my bed.  I was woken up at 5:30 pm by my wife and 3 cops in flak-jackets, one of them pointing his pistol at me.  Not to seem too 'cool', but I didn't panic or anything, I was surprised mostly to see my wife, I thought she was gone all week.  And I'm saying, "What's up, what's going on," just matter-of-factly.  And my wife said the cops called her and told her to come back and let them in since they had to arrest me for threatening them the night before, they said I threatened to shoot the 2 cops with an AK-47.  So I do the 'perp walk' down my driveway in handcuffs, wearing a ski jacket, jeans, Lacoste shirt and shoes.  Not your typical weekday scene in suburbia.

In jail (photo at left) I'm one of 4 white guys of 500 inmates, a real 'snowball in the coal pile'.  And the black thugs are all asking me, "What you in for, Dog?".  And I'm lying to them, said I'm in there for fighting or for a DUI, but really I was unsure of the charges, I was after all still hazy and somewhat under the influence.  At the police station an hour before I blew just barely under a 0.08 on the Breathalyzer.

I'm feeling kinda foggy, and really tired.  So I just told anyone who asked, "I was fighting," or "I got a DUI".  They didn't believe me.  When some of us were standing in line to get officially booked in, the officer read out what I was charged with, and the black guys behind me apparently overheard, "Threatening to shoot police officers with an AK-47".  So, I got some instant thug respect.  I mean, clearly I seemed like some violent dude despite the Yuppie Lacoste clothes, Rolex watch, and ski jacket.  They mostly kept away from me, referred to me the whole time as the "White dude with the AK-47."

Then the 'thugs', mostly "wanna-be-thugs", you know all talk and no walk, were all asking me why I was gonna shoot the cops with an AK-47.  But I just said simply what I thought was the truth, "Because they were knocking on my door late at night."   I think this made me some kinda 'serious thug' in their minds, like I was some real criminal.  They were in there for mostly bullshit offenses.  Most of the black guys were in due to their girlfriends for whatever reason called the cops on them.  But yeah, some armed robbery suspects, I don't remember any murder suspects or really violent offenders but I tried not to talk too much to the others.

One black guy, a young guy with dreadlocks, I kinda bonded with him as we were shackled together for our bail hearings.  I felt sorry for him, he was an armed robbery suspect, only 25 years old, and on the van ride over to the courthouse he just put his head in his hands and complained, "Damn I'm just some punk-ass nigga gonna go do 10 years."  If I'd been able to think clearer I'd have paid my attorney to represent him, I didn't think about this until the van ride back to jail.  I had the money then to spare for this, was kinda financially well off in 2005.  I always wondered about him.  It's one reason nowadays I'm quick to offer help, financial or otherwise, to someone in need.  Just hate feeling regrets like this when I could have helped somoeone in need.  Maybe he wasn't guilty anyway?  Just a young guy with bad luck.  Maybe could have been a 'soldier' in the Revolution to come.

And I'm in jail overnight  & all day the next day.  My cell mate was this 18 year old Hispanic  kid, busted and sentenced to a few days for marijuana possession.  Apparently he was afraid of me, he took the razor blade out of his shaving razor while we were locked up, but I didn't threaten him or anything.

My wife bailed me out around 4 am on my 2nd night in jail.  I remember this one 19 year old thug, who recently moved to Atlanta from L.A., and the entire time in there he talked about 'gang-banging' with the Crips and Bloods, kept calling me 'Nigga' the whole time, and he really was one of those wanna-be thugs.  His grandma bailed him out, and so I'm walking to my car with my wife while he's walking with his grandma, and he's saying, "Please don't beat me Grandma!", and she did actually whack the kid.  Talkin the talk, not walkin the walk, what would his Crips homies think of that scene, getting whacked by his grandma.

So what happened?  I got suspended from work and lost my security clearance.  I had a really good attorney, he got the charges completely dropped on the basis that the cops were at my house without a warrant or summons very late at night, in his words, "Clearly to provoke me."  One of the deals with the prosecutor though was that I'd go to an Anger Management class and then Rehab, which is how I ended up in Rehab #3.

So, that's basically the story, but I never got my clearance back.  I have an arrest record with 2 felony arrests on it.  Just an arrest record, but employers check these out sometimes.  I had to get a new job in a new industry, which was a long and hard ordeal.  But I did it, with God's help, and I was again successful after a few years.  But it was a trying time.

LOSING CHRIS

My youngest brother died in mid-October 2007.  I think the 16th or 17th.  Since I'd been engulfed in the addiction myself for nearly 20 years, and probably attended over a thousand 12-Step meetings and heard a lot of tragic stories by then, I had some intuition since 2001 that Chris was going to die tragically.  He'd just lost his high-paying yuppie investment banker job due to the dot-com bust of 2000, and he couldn't handle what he thought was a failure, although all of his friends were laid off too.  He took it personally.  Chris was a somewhat moderate drinker until then, and was considered the "white sheep" of the family.  But he just gave up on life, and started to drink his days away.  I told his girlfriend in 2001 that it would likely be me who'd have to I.D. his body in some morgue.  Six years later, when he really did have to be I.D'd in a morgue, it had to be done through his dental records.  I'm really glad I didn't have to do it.

Anyway, my mom called me on a Wednesday afternoon and asked if Chris had called or contacted me.  Chris was missing since the night before.  I was living in Atlanta then, and was the only family member who treated Chris decently.  So my mom thought maybe he called or texted me.  The bartenders at the local bars told my brother or brother-in-law that Chris was in their bars and really drunk, could barely walk out.  He tried to charge some drinks to my cousin's tab at one bar and the bartender wouldn't allow this.  So he staggered out, and that was the last time anyone saw Chris alive.  It was maybe 9 pm on a Tuesday.

And yeah, when she told me he was missing, I knew he was dead.  And so, she called back on Friday, and Saturday, and talked to my wife, she was frantic by then, he was missing now for 4 days, and no emails or texts to anyone.

On Sunday afternoon, my other brother called and my wife answered, she told me it was my brother and he needed to talk to me "right now."  He simply told me, "Chris drowned."  And I wasn't too shocked, but in a curious way I was relieved.  I asked him "where?", and "how?"  He was floating in the river right by our town, 100 yards from this river park which had benches and where steamboats docked to unload tourists to our town.   The river park is a block from my parents' house front door.

I was relieved that he was found, because imagine if he simply went missing for a long time.  That would be hard to deal with, no closure, only uncertainty and anxiety every time the phone rings or someone knocks on the door.

And at this point in my life, I'd lost a few friends who died young, and my long experience with addiction I had expected Chris to die tragically, and I was somewhat prepared for it emotionally.  I didn't cry, and really, my feelings the entire next week were relief that Chris didn't die a violent, painful death.  And I could handle stoically going back to my hometown, the funeral, the cemetary, the day after all this.  Everyone else in the family were crying all the while.  I wondered during the funeral, were these real tears?  They really treated Chris like a dog, like a loser, for the past 6 years.  I treated him just the same as when he was the superstar at Georgetown University.  I really did.  And I had to do most of the "dirty work", had to be the one they called to drive him to the detox centers 2 or 3 times, the one they called when he came in and got into fist-fights with my dad.  The family just didn't want to deal with the issue.  I'm not complaining, I was just helping my brother out.
But I'll never forgive my brother, sister, parents, brother-in-law, cousins for treating Chris like a loser, an outcast, a pariah.  In the right setting, in a more normal family like the ones I saw so many times come to the rehabs to support their loved ones, instead of my pathetic dysfunctional family, Chris would have bounced back, and gotten back on his feet again. 
And this is largely the reason I don't have a family anymore.  We basically just told each other in 2011, my last visit to my hometown, that I will not be your brother or son anymore. It's a little more involved than that, what was said and done then, but the gist of it is that I don't have any family now other than my son.  But I have some of my friends who I consider my real brothers.
That's how I 'lost' my so-called family.  I don't miss them.  
And in 2011, I went back home, the first time really since October 2007 for Chris' funeral.  I went down to the river park with Chris last friend, a guy named Brian who was a recovering crack addict.  I needed to get some closure on the issue.  Brian and I discussed how Chris ended up in the river.  My opinion is that he fell in.  Brian thinks he jumped off the nearby bridge, suicide.  My family thinks he got in a fight with someone down there and they beat him up and pushed him in.  We'll never know for sure.  
That's how we lost Chris.  I really miss him...

WALKING (&JOGGING) THROUGH HELL

I don't know what my dad's problem was, but he just didn't like me for some reason.  It's hard to know why other than he himself was from an abusive, dysfunctional family and his dad would get drunk and beat him.  Maybe this is some sickness that some people just need to perpetuate.  Thank God I am breaking the cycle, I cannot yell at my son, and certainly could never spank him or hit him.  I'd rather cut off my arm than hit my son, and I really mean it.
But my dad just couldn't lay off me when I was growing up.  I got whacked over the head once, but mostly the beatings were across my back while he was smacking me down the hall to my room.
Of course, I eventually put a stop to the abuse when I got big enough, a senior in high school.  I was really in great shape going into my senior year of high school.  All summer long I ran several miles each day, lifted weights, and worked the hard manual labor on farms.  Of course many hours of basketball, on the rough local playgrounds.  My house was only a block away from what we called 'the hood' in our town.  Yeah, I really did get into some slam dunk contests with my black friends.  My favorite opponent, he was stabbed to death that year only a block away, in 'the hood.'  He was cool, and this was the first time someone I knew closely was killed.  I only weighed 160 but I looked like 200 pounds, just pure muscle, no fat.  Really good shape.  And I was really wanting the best basketball season ever, bad...

My senior year, we were supposed to have been our absolute best basketball team ever, 3 returning starters from the previous year which was our best season ever.  As a junior, and starter, on the previous year's basketball team, we won 20 and lost 6, and one of those wins was in the final game of a tournament, our school's first ever championship trophy.  Even 33 years later, that trophy dominates the hallway, right outside the school lunch room.  There's a picture of our team by it, the starters in front, we're down on one knee.  Around my neck is one of the nets we cut down.  Our best player graduated and went on to play Division 1 college ball, and for a while he was one of the top 10 scorers in the country.   Not bad for a little Catholic high school with only 92 students. 

And so, I cannot figure out why my dad never liked me.  Not only was I a basketball and baseball star, a junior starter on the school's best team ever, but I scored very high on the National Merit Scholar test my junior year and got some award, in the 5 county area I was the 3rd highest scorer on this test, and it made the papers.  For this accomplishment, the principal, teachers, and even some parents, thanked me for 'putting the school on the map.'

I never got in any trouble either growing up.  I smoked some marijuana, rarely, but generally did not like to smoke as I didn't want anything 'polluting my lungs' and slowing me down in sports.  I drank the usual amount of beer, however much that was, maybe a few during the week and a 6-pack on Friday and Saturday nights.  Just like all the guys at school.  But no DUI's, no arrests, no drugs, no trouble.  Behind the scenes, it helped that my family was politically connected, because in high school I got pulled over 3 or 4 times when I was under the influence.  The cops just looked at my license, realized who I was, and told me either to go home or simply to be careful.  Giving me a ticket, yeah they knew it would have been 'fixed'.  Once I was pulling into a gas station while chugging a beer, and a cop standing there at the gas pumps, looking right at me.  He pulled me over a few minutes later and told me to 'Have more respect for the law'.  He didn't pay any attention to the big cooler setting on my car's back seat, full of beer. Yeah, officer, this Bud's for you!  These days it's a lot stricter. 

My dad stopped harassing me on November 10, 1981.  A day I'll never forget, a nightmare come true.  And it was a Sunday, my youngest brother's birthday, and my middle brother had a basketball tournament championship game that day, across the street at our school.  His team won, he did pretty good.  And my girlfriend was in town, her best friend's boyfriend was in the local theatre and it was the last performance of whatever play they were doing.  And so, after the basketball tournament, and birthday party, she and I went to his house for the cast party.  He was one of the town's super wealthy, lived in a huge mansion, and it was a really lavish party.  I drank too much, yeah that happened some times, and that day I was in a good mood, and just overdid it.  I remember a lot of expensive liquor, which then I couldn't handle as I mostly drank beer.  So I drank a lot of this liquor, and my girlfriend drove me home around 10 pm.  It was Sunday, and a school night.
I walked in my house, and my parents had some company still, usually after ball games at school across the street the coaches and some parents would come over to our house and have a little get-together.  Sometimes, the priests from the parish rectory across the street would come over too.  I just walked in, said "hi" to whoever was there, and went right to my bedroom.  Took off my shirt and just plopped on my bed, and passed out.
Some time later, the guests left, my dad had been drinking, and he knew I was drunk when I walked through earlier.  He was really angry as he thought I had been driving my car when I was drunk, but the reality was my girlfriend drove me home.  She was smart enough not to let me drive when I was really drunk.
So my dad comes in my bedroom, and I'm passed out, and he yanks me up and starts yelling in my face, and I really don't remember if he threw the first punch or I did.  What's interesting is that 33 years later I can remember some of this like it was yesterday, despite being so drunk that I passed out.  So whoever threw the first punch, I'll take the credit or blame, maybe it's irrelevant, but 10 minutes later my room looked like a hurricane came through it.  My desk chair was smashed, and 2 drawers from my dresser pulled out and really just smashed.  And I remember thinking I was gonna lose this fight, my dad was really tough back then, he was a former sergeant in the army.  And my mom called the cops, she and my sister were screaming this whole time.  It was really a violent, shocking thing.  I don't know how the furniture got smashed though.  And so, this 'fight or flight' instinct kicked in, and my brain chose 'flight.'   The only way out of my bedroom was the door blocked by my dad.  So I literally jumped headfirst - actually facefirst - through the window and landed in the back yard.  From there I could see the police lights flashing on the street out front, I jumped out just in time.  Of course I would have been taken to jail, not my dad, the instigator.  Fortunately, despite the 6 feet drop from my window to the ground, I landed somehow that I didn't get injured.  And there I am, in my backyard, on a cold, damp November night, no shirt and blood all over me.  Jumping through the window left a huge gash from my forehead down to my cheek.  The glass missed my eye by 1/4 inch.  So I ran...
Maybe it was like a scene from 'Rambo', I ran through the town maybe 2 or 3 miles, ducking into the shadows whenever a car was coming.  And I got another couple of miles to where the city ends and the country starts, thick woods.  I was half jogging, half walking.  Whenever a car's headlights were approaching in the distance, I'd jump into a ditch by the road, ducking under the bushes or trees.  I was going to my girlfriend's, she lived several miles away, and this was the insanity of the situation, she lived so far away and I'm thinking I can get to her house on foot.  And so maybe 2 more miles, I don't know, I came to a backroad off the main highway, and thought I knew where I was, I thought maybe this was a short cut.
And at this point, it's probably midnight, about 40-something degrees cold, damp, foggy, I have no shirt on, I'm covered with blood, and still bleeding profusely from the gash on my face.  I forget the details around this point, where I turned onto the backroad, but I was probably walking-jogging through hell for maybe 2 or 3 hours. The backroad, it turns out wasn't a shortcut, and I was lost. I should have gotten hypothermia from the cold exposure.  I saw some headlights coming after wandering this backroad, and just gave up, I stood in the road and waved the guy down.
Fortunately, it was one of the local redneck pot-heads, who the hell else would have pulled over and gave me a ride?  This guy didn't know me but he knew my girlfriend's dad, since her dad owned a farm supply store.  He lived not too far from her.  I asked him to give me a ride to her house, and he agreed, what else could he say to a bloody, half-drunk, shirtless, shivering teenager?  I don't remember what we talked about, but 20 minutes later we pulled into my girlfriend's driveway, it's maybe 1 am.  I rang her doorbell, she came to the door with her mom, they saw me and kind of screamed, saying "Oh my God!" and you know, the usual stuff girlfriends and their moms say when you ring their doorbell covered with blood and no shirt at 1 am.  I can vaguely remember they wiped the blood off my face, and my girlfriend's mom talking about hypothermia, hospital, stitches, whatever.  They covered me up with blankets after cleaning the blood off and bandaging me, and the next day my girlfriend took me to my grandma's.  I stayed there for a week, I refused to go home.
I remember my girlfriend was kinda in shock over this for most of the winter.
When I finally did go home, my room looked the same as when I jumped out the window, only they covered up the broken window with plastic sheeting.  It stayed like that all winter.  They never took me to get stitches, and my whole senior year the scar ran visibly from my forehead down to my cheek.  Now only a small scar remains, 1/4" away from my left eye.  I am so lucky I didn't lose my eye.
And I missed basketball practices due to this, right before the first big game of the year, and the coach made me sit on the bench the whole game.  The next day I took my uniform over to his office and told him I didn't want to play.  I was really upset that he wouldn't let me play that game, I was going to go head-to-head against the leading scorer in the state and there were a lot of college scouts at that game.  Even today I have dreams about playing high school basketball, it's just something unresolved, deep inside, that I never got over.  These dreams are rarer now, once or twice a year maybe.  Even without me the team had a really good season, they went the farthest ever in the state tournament our school had ever gone. 
I credit of course my Guardian Angel, this night could have ended on a more tragic note, I could have died somewhere on that backroad, after losing so much blood, no shirt, on a cold November night.  My dad never harassed me again, in fact he largely ignored me after that, until the following summer when we were visiting prospective colleges. 
And that's how it is, to walk (& jog) through hell...

50 TODAY! MANY THANKS TO MY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Today is my 50th birthday.  I should not be alive.  I've come close to death many times, 99% of those times I was under the influence, usually alcohol.  Aside from too many spin outs in cars, both as a driver and passenger, I almost drowned twice.
The first time was in Cancun.  Me and my girlfriend played some really hard tennis early in the morning, it was the only time that the temperature was below 95 degrees, the rest of the days that month, July 1995, were around 100 degrees or so.  And I basically sweated out all of my body's electrolytes.  And then like was our daily routine, we went out to the beach to lay there while ordering 'buckets of Coronas' which is just what it says:  a bucket full of Corona beers with ice.  And so, after a couple of these buckets, I was ready to show off, by swimming out 100 yards to a coral reef, a little island out there in the ocean.  And so, being really intoxicated I just jumped in, and 75 yards out I just suddenly lost all my energy.  I mean, I felt like I was drained of any strength, could not move my arms or legs.  It was due likely to replacing my body's electrolytes with Corona.  Not a good idea.  And I was going down, I was sinking, and I remember I inhaled a big breath of air to stay buoyant.  That was all I could do, and I looked back at the lifeguard, who was WAY back, too far to do me any real good, and I was sinking again and down to where my mouth was underwater and I couldn't yell for help, but I could wave for help.  I remember the lifeguard stood up as though he was gonna jump in, and I had barely the strength to wave for him.  Then my ego kicked in, I mean damn, I really would rather have drowned before I'd wave for help. 
This is my fatal weakness, I cannot reach out for help, cannot.
I didn't see my life flash before me like some people say happens right before death, but I had a brief vision of my funeral and my family sitting there crying.  And then all the shadows underwater seemed like sharks.  It was really a terrifying few moments.  Very scary!  Really!
Suddenly it was like WHAM!  I just seemed to get some burst of energy ... or was I being pulled?  Somehow I ended up on the coral reef.  The lifeguard sat back down.  I was really

terrified by this, and I stayed there just sitting on the reef, I was too afraid to swim back to the beach.   A half hour later, yeh, I barely got the courage and jumped in and the waves mostly carried me back to the beach.  And another bucket of  Coronas to drown the terror.  My girlfriend asked me why I stayed on the reef so long, I lied that there were some cool fish out there I was watching.  I was really shaken up the rest of that day.
Today, 20 years later, I cannot swim in the ocean farther out than 4 feet deep.  If the water gets up to my neck I start to feel panicky.  I'm glad I didn't drown that day, my first real brush with real death.  It's terrifying.  I used to joke about death, like "Ha ha, I'm not afraid to die."  No, I am very afraid to die and I can only thank my Guardian Angel for pulling me to the reef.

My 2nd brush with death, I wasn't under the influence or anything, I was sober.  I was under the influence of my ego, though.  Kinda showing off, the ego thing.  And so this time I almost drowned, at Great Falls in the Potomac River.   It was my first kayak lesson, the instructor was an 18 year old kid but he was good enough to try out for the Olympic team.  And there's this one rapid, right where the water comes over the fall, it's called "The Hole" (photo at right).  What the "Hole" really is, it's a white-water phenomenon called a 'hydraulic'.  These are very dangerous to mess with, only for expert kayakers who paddle into the hydraulic barely, which causes their kayak to stand up on the front end and then get 'spit' back out.  It's called 'surfing the hole."  It's really dangerous to be sucked into a hydraulic, even the most buoyant logs can be held under for minutes at a time, and so of course a person with wearing a life preserver vest wouldn't stand a chance.
So, I had only had 2 hours of lessons, my first time in a kayak, and aside from paddling around the only notable skill I learned was how to bail out when my kayak goes upside down.  I surely didn't know how to do the 'Eskimo roll' where you basically do a complete rotation under water and back up again.  I still can't do this, I get stuck upside down & bail.
And my instructor and I for some reason decide we need to go 'surf the Hole'.  Remember, 18 year old expert kayakers don't always have the best judgement.  But he surfed it a few times, and said to me, "Now it's your turn."
18 year old kid daring me... hell yeah I'm gonna do it!  I'm an idiot.  I should be dead.
And I paddle into the 'Hole', and immediately turn over, and I bail out underwater, and the Hole spat out my kayak, but not me!  And yeah, I'm going under, and pop up and under again, and pop up again, and I looked at my instructor who by now had a horrified look on his face, I think he was thinking I was gonna drown.  He paddled in, and I popped up enough to grab the front of his kayak, but slipped off, and he's yelling, "Grab my boat and hang on!" looking even more scared now.  And I grabbed the front end of his kayak and again slipped off.  And one more time, and grabbed his kayak, and finally held on tight enough, he back paddled out away from the hole.  Yes, it was terrifying.  Being upside down underwater in a kayak in the Hole.  And 2 decades later, yeh I can get in a kayak, but only on calm water.  But, the slightest ripples and I get this panicky feeling.

Some other brushes with death?  Hmmm, I nearly overdosed a few years ago.
I wasn't trying to die but I didn't care if I didn't wake up.  At the time life really sucked.
And late one night, after 25 drinks, I took a handful of Klonopin pills,  maybe 25 of them.  I don't know why I did this, other than I knew this would really put me to sleep.  At the same time, I knew it was dangerous to mix Klonopin with alcohol.  And I felt like my life sucked.  My wife left with my kid a week before, I don't know where they went, she did this 2 or 3 times a year.  And I didn't have a job.  A lot of things sucked.  Anyway, it was very dangerous.  Klonopin is a tranquilizer, of the benzodiazepide class of drugs.  A lot of people die from mixing benzo's with alcohol, due to an effect called 'synergism'.   Basically, it means 1+1=3.  Benzo's interact with alcohol and they intensify each other's effect, to the point one's respiratory system shuts down.  I didn't really want to die, but I didn't care if I didn't wake up.  That's as basic as I can explain it. 
I didn't die, but 15 hours later I woke up.  And went to the liquor store.
And that night I drank even more alcohol and took even MORE Klonopin.  And I still woke up the next day.  Again, I didn't want to die, but I also didn't really care if I never woke up again.  I knew then about benzo-alcohol synergism, they teach us these things in Rehab. 
This 'flirting with death', in 3 days I went through 100 Klonopin pills and gallons of booze. And really it's a miracle I survived. 
I shouldn't be here today, celebrating my 50th birthday.
I'm going out now, to a 12-Step meeting, which I should do every day, forever.   

I'm pretty good at attending these when I get my head back on straight.

Like it is now.

I'm glad I'm alive.

I think my friends are glad too.

I'm sure my son is glad too, wherever he is.

Thank you so much Guardian Angel! 

BREAKING HEARTS

One thing that us with alcohol or drug problems do, is break our loved ones' hearts.  Our family, friends, anyone close enough.  We just say and do these things while under the influence, that we'd never say otherwise.  And we come out of the fog and realize this, it breaks our hearts too.  During the last binge, I hurt someone who is very very dear to me, and one of my favoritest people of all time.  And a week ago, when my mind could think somewhat clearly, I realized I hurt her, and a tear ran down my cheek, and then another...   Because she means very much to me.  Realizing I hurt her feels worse than breaking my heart, it feels like tearing my soul. 

BINGES, AND THEN SOME

What's motivated me, primarily, to write about these experiences, was that on my last binge, from January 19 to 28, I said or texted some things that hurt a friend.  And I really want to repair that friendship.  I want her to understand what makes me 'tick' so she can understand why I would act in such a way.
When people with alcohol problems, like myself, get even a small bit of alcohol in our systems, we say and do things that make no sense.  We become different people.  I was sober for 11 months and was really bummed out on that weekend.  There has been a lot going on in my life, most importantly my wife wouldn't let me see my son at Christmas, and worse she changed her cell phone number.  So, I have no idea where they are and how my son is doing.  Some other things too, my dad died just before Christmas, and also problems at work.  And rather than talk it out with a friend I just kept it all inside.  And it was too much to keep inside, and it just got to me.  So I just bought some wine and stayed intoxicated for 9 days.  I don't remember much of those days, but then, that was kind of the point in a curious sort of logic. 
On day 9 I was so sick I could barely walk, much less go out and buy more alcohol.  This is how these binges end, I've drank so much I'm too sick to drink anymore.   I thought I was dying and held on to a rosary much of January 28 and January 29 and prayed to God that I wouldn't die.  Maybe I was close to death, I didn't eat for the last 4 days, and my system was poisoned with alcohol.  I was really sick.
Afterwards, I cleaned up the mess, 2 large trash bags of bottles and cans.
Rehab helps, but THIS is what keeps me sober, the memories of the last day of such a binge.  It's the most horrible, scary feeling I can think of.  Shaking uncontrollably, sweating buckets, too weak to walk to the bathroom, feeling death close by.  It's really bad.  This is what I remember each day for months afterward that keeps any cravings for a 'buzz' out of my mind.  In fact, during this last binge I really don't remember too much of having a buzz, I just drank to stay numb, and I drank wine all day until I passed out.  Curiously, I cannot stand hard liquor but it doesn't matter the form alcohol comes in, it's how much is consumed.
There was a lot of pain in my life that I just wanted to not feel for a few days.
But the smart thing, and I knew this before I took that first drink on January 19, is to talk it out.  I just couldn't reach out.  The ego thing, the 'attitude' thing is going to kill me.  And I don't want my kid to grow up without a dad.  At some point, I've got to get over this, for my son's sake.
My son and I are best buddies.
I finally did reach out to one of my friends, on January 29, I called him and told him to come over, that I needed some help.  When I let him in, he saw me in this condition and was horrified, I remember the look on his face.  He saw all these bottles all over the room, and was shocked, he'd never known me to drink. 
My friend twice offered to take me to a hospital.  I said no, but I really wanted to go to one.  Detoxing from alcohol or drugs is very dangerous.
Bear in mind that on the Friday before this binge, I had no thoughts of drinking, and bear in mind that I'd gone 11 months without a drink.  Then BAM!  10 days later and my body is poisoned and I feel like I'm dying. 
But my friends visit cheered me up mentally, and for 3 hours I told him how I'd come to this point.  Basically my life story, my rehabs, my family feuds, my dead brother, my abusive dad, my current problems, everything.  A lot of how we get along physically is based on how we think mentally, and this visit was a huge boost to my mood, it helped me get better bodily.
Anyway, this was a Thursday, and to skip ahead a few days on Saturday I was well enough to go hang out that night.  I cried a lot all day though, I realized some of the bullshit I said or did during the binge.  Especially the friend I hurt, when I realized this my heart was broken. 
Then on Sunday, hung out all day.  What does 'hang out' mean?  Just something I do with people like me.  We kinda hang together, to get through this sort of thing...
Sunday night, well I really overdid it, I'm still sweating, shaking, detoxing;  but there's just some feature of my personality that won't let me rest like a normal person, like the speedometer is always pegged.
So while my body is still working through the poison, I decide to go to the health club.  I laid down at about 7:00 pm that night, after getting home, and it felt good to lay down.  I had hardly slept in 4 days, since passing out from alcohol on January 27.  This is another feature of detoxing, there's some adrenaline rush that kicks in for some people - like me - that keeps us from sleeping during the ordeal.  Who knows, maybe this is what keeps my body from shutting down.  But after laying down, I thought I still needed to do something more. 
So I'm in the jacuzzi at 7:45 pm, it's very hot, feels like 150 degrees, I don't know as there was no thermometer, I stayed in for 15 minutes and stood up, and felt really weak, really dizzy.  I mean REALLY WEAK.  I could barely get out, and when I did, I could barely walk about 20 feet to a pool chair.  I laid down on the pool chair, and covered my self up with towels, like a blanket, but I wasn't cold.  I thought maybe after 15 minutes, or half hour, I'd feel better, but at 8:15 I realized something didn't feel right.  I was the only guest there, and yelled over to the attendant to call a doctor.  He asked what was wrong and I said I don't know but I feel really bad.
He called 911 and the ambulance came, and it's a good thing, as my blood pressure was only 70 / 30.  That's barely anything there folks.  I was almost dead.  
And then I'm in the hospital, and somehow recovering on my own.  They didn't give me any drugs or anything, but just hooked me up to some heart monitor and put me in bed, I think I was in the ICU...
I asked for an Ambien to help me sleep, it worked, first sleep in days.  I had these vivid dreams all night, and talked in my sleep.  The next morning, the doctor said I was hallucinating during this sleep, I can only remember some OK dreams but they seemed real.  I think I may have sleep-walked, I think Ambien does this to some people.
I was in the hospital from Sunday night until Thursday afternoon.  One reason for the long stay was my diabetes had my body chemistry out of whack, every 2 hours they took a blood sample and shot me with insulin.  They also said my other chemistry was out of whack too, that my sodium levels were too low.  Probably the detoxing from alcohol did this.
The only diagnosis I got was that I was dehydrated.   I had been sick ever since New Year's Eve with a cough and virus, on top of all of that.
I'll close for now, and thank God I'm still alive to tell these tales.  Yeah, my guardian angel is a GOOD one...

REHABS, A PRELUDE

I've been in rehab 6 times.  That's one more time than Charlie Sheen.  Unlike Charlie, I don't like to brag about it like it's some badge of honor for hard partiers.  I'm kinda embarrassed in a way, in that going to rehab is an admission of weakness, although in the back of my mind I know it takes some courage to ask for help.  So I'll write about these experiences.  I think most people who know me have some inkling I've been in a rehab.  I doubt they know it's been 6 times.  I didn't even realize it was 6 times myself until I decided to count them up last month.  My problem?  Alcohol, pure and simple.  Fortunately, I don't really like drugs, and then for 20 years I was in a job that required random drug testing.
It's interesting, I cannot take a sip of wine without going on a binge, but I can take a Vicodin, or a Zanax, and it's no big deal.  Others who were in rehab couldn't live without those drugs, but could take it or leave it when it comes to alcohol.  Alcohol just does something different in my body, compared to others.  It makes all my problems go away, and I feel this huge pleasure rush.  Biologically, what it does in my system, as with others like me, is cause this huge rush of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin.  I think GABA and epinephrine are also involved, but scientifically it's largely a mystery how alcohol is addictive to some people but not others.
Genetically I'm a victim of my genes, Irish and Scottish ancestry.  All 4 of my great-grandfathers, both of my grandfathers, and my father, have all died from some or other cause due to alcohol.  It's a huge part of the Irish-Catholic culture I grew up in.  So, in a sense going to rehab made me an outcast from most of my family.  Ever since I was 24 I was considered suspect at the family parties.  I have a big family and they love to party.  So when I showed up drinking Diet Pepsi or non-alcoholic beer, I think I made the rest feel a bit uncomfortable.  The reality was I didn't care what anyone else drank, it never bothered me to drink non-alcoholic drinks while everyone else was drinking beers or mint juleps or whatever.
That's where I think it takes some courage to go to rehab.  You have to be ready to become a social pariah in many cases, such as in my family.  My family is very dysfunctional, by the way.  What hurt the worst was my mom's attitude, she considered it a weakness.  Ever since I was 24, after rehab #1 in 1988, she seemed to resent me.  What's bad about that is she sat on her hands and watched my superstar little brother waste away and die at 34 of alcoholism.  And, for 20 years she never tried to stop my dad from overdoing it, she just sat and watched nightly as my dad drank himself into a severe case of liver disease, which killed him.  But those are other stories to tell later.
Why 6 times in rehab?  Well, mostly I could never complete the whole treatment.  Here's a summary:
Rehab #1, September 1988, Bellefonte Hospital, Ashland, KY: Kicked out after 2 weeks for not following the program.  I told them how to run THEIR progam everyday.  Didn't work. 
Rehab #2, August 1989, St. Joseph Hospital, Lexington, KY: Checked in on Monday, left on Friday after I learned it wasn't covered by insurance.  What's interesting about this is that afterwards I didn't drink for 4 years, just from the 'shock' value of being in there.
Rehab #3, March 2006, Ridgeview Hospital, Smyrna, GA: I actually completed 30 days in-patient and came back voluntarily for 3 weeks outpatient, and 'graduated'.  It was a huge milestone in my life, although I only stayed sober for 13 months afterwards, when I got drunk at the 2007 family Easter party. But the lessons somehow sank in, and helped me in later struggles. 
Rehab #4, October 2010, Ridgeview again:  After staying sober on and off for 3 month spells since the 2007 relapse, eventually I just lost the battle.  One day in October after the equivalent of 35 drinks, I barely made it downstairs to the kitchen and scribbled, "I need help" on a post-it note, which is how I told my wife.  I went in and after a couple of weeks my ego, or 'attitude', kicked in after my mind cleared up.  Anyway, there was this really pretty female patient who I started flirting with.  This is a major rules violation.  When the counselors got on my case about it I said, "Fuck this," and walked out.  I was in there about 18 or 20 days, I forget.  I stayed sober throughout November and December.  On January 7, 2011 when I was taking down the Christmas tree I got depressed and got drunk.  Three weeks later...
Rehab #5, January 31, 2011, Ridgeview again:  My wife was furious after the relapse and left with my son.  So I really drank a lot from January 7 to January 31.  For some reason, she came back on that day, which was a Saturday, just to pack me up and take me back to Ridgeview.  The staff in the detox unit who saw me just 3 months earlier were literally shocked to see me, especially the wasted condition I was in.  There was a nurse from the previous visit who really liked me, she was horrified.  I feel sorry for the staff at these places, they get attached to people like me, and see us at first succeed, only to come back again and again, looking worse each time.  However, my usual doctor since 2006 summed it up, as he saw I was looking defeated at having failed.  He said to me, "Don't feel bad.  It's the really smart, successful people like you who sometimes have to come back 10, 11, 12 times.  You scientists, lawyers, doctors can fix all these problems of the world, but you're the last to realize you can't fix yourselves.  You have to admit, alcohol is more powerful, and surrender to the disease."  Very wise and true words.  Yeah, I finally learned, outside of rehab as I'll tell in another post, that I cannot fix myself.  Anyway, I really tried hard in this stint.  However, ego and attitude kicked in.  Every day in group therapy, I argued with the counselor and other patients.  I thought I knew better.  I made it for 30 days inpatient, and then after 2 weeks outpatient, I took some Adderall which showed up on the routine drug tests we have to take in rehab.  The Adderall was prescribed and I didn't think this was my addiction, I was in for alcohol.  So I argued, "Hey, I need this stuff so I can pay attention in the group therapy sessions and classes."  They said, "No deal, you can't take Adderall, so you have to go back to square 1, back to 30 days inpatient."  I said, "Adios, amigos," and left.  I stayed sober for 4 months. 
Rehab #6, August 15, 2011 Some rehab place in Atlanta:  I don't even remember the name of this place, it was in South Atlanta.  How I got there?  I visited my family and got put in jail by my brother and brother-in-law.  The judge's verdict was to let me out of jail, provided I get directly out of Kentucky and into rehab in another state.  The judge also said I was banned from Kentucky for 5 years.  No, I didn't do anything violent other than break a window.  But my brother pressed charges for threatening him and he made them stick.  He's an asshole lawyer by the way.  There's a long-running feud between us, which is another story.  As for Rehab # 6, it was some inner-city place in Atlanta.  I don't even remember the name.  Most of the other patients were Blacks, and were addicted to crack.  They thought I was cool though, for a rich white yuppie...  Not to make light of crack addiction, but some of my best rehab buddies were Black crack addicts.  A feature of rehab is they make you play sports each day, and we'd have these fun times on the basketball courts or softball fields, trash-talking each other and laughing.  I was there for 2 weeks and insurance wouldn't pay for more.  Bear in mind, this was the 3rd time in rehab within a year, and I think the insurance companies realize a hopeless case.  But, there's always hope...
Enough for now, this is just an overview.  So, I'll stop here, and tell the details in future posts.
Thank God, I am still alive, and yes there are guardian angels...