Alcoholism

I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in 21 years but I’m as much an alcoholic as the day I took my last drink. I’m just an alcoholic who doesn’t drink. I also know that if I were to start drinking again within weeks I would be right back to where I was when I quit 21 years ago. Unemployed, friendless, and ruined family relationships.

During my drinking career I managed to get arrested multiple times – I lost count early. Almost all of the arrests were DUI and public intoxication although I did do some stupid things while drunk like breaking into a couple of places and I once was arrested for sneaking a case of bear into the restroom of a grocery store and getting drunk in there

I discovered at a young age that one of the funnest things to do was to get loaded and go out driving – looking for chicks, races, or just mischief. My first car lasted one week before I drove it up on top of some big rocks late one rainy night. That was a DUI. In my drinking and driving escapades also managed to sideswipe a house at about 2am, crashed into the front supports of a grocery store one snowy afternoon, hit a tree (I think it was a tree anyway, I don’t remember anything), and crashed head on into a car load of people while driving my best friend’s parent’s car. My friend wasn’t supposed to let anyone drive their car so he said he was driving in the crash confusion. We both went to the hospital and he nearly got a DUI. This was in the days when MADD was just getting started and the cops and courts didn’t take DUI as seriously as today. I was pulled over several times obviously drunk and just either just told to go home or had the cops follow me home. I actually got pulled over twice in the same night once when I went back out after the cops followed me home. I could have gotten a DUI either time but didn’t get anything.

My last drunk lasted about a month and ended with me getting my third DUI in a year and I was sure I was going to prison. I spent eleven days in jail and then my parents paid my fines in cash and the problem went away. Never was sure what really happened. Anyway, I started going to AA after that (again, I had gone off and on since I was 15) and so far haven’t had a drink since.

After getting sober I needed to figure out what to do with my life so I signed up for some electronics engineering classes at the Purdue extension in my hometown. I managed to get straight As for three years straight. The dean of the engineering school got wind of this and scheduled a meeting with me. He told me if I wanted to get an engineering degree I could get in the Purdue School of Engineering. This was quite an accomplishment for someone who majored in shop in high school and barely graduated and don’t remember most of it. I attended part of my senior year catching the bus from the juvenile center. I also kind of flipped out on PCP in Mr Bean’s last hour Social Studies class but nothing ever came of that. It was a different time then. I remember listening to Cheech and Chong with my mom and step dad when I was about thirteen. People today would be shocked to hear that stuff (I sure wouldn’t want my kids listening to it )

I graduated with a BSEE with a 3.86 GPA and had a job with Intel Corporation in Chandler, AZ waiting for me at graduation. I’ve been on many of the leading edge design teams working of many of Intel’s flagship microprocessors ever since. I’m currently working on design for debug features for one of Intel’s low power microprocessors.

Alcoholism and drug addiction has ravaged my family. My mother left my biological father when I was two because of alcoholic drinking and I grew up not seeing him much but when I did see him there were several “incidents’. I also heard from my mother quite often how he was an alcoholic. My wife, son, sister, biological father as well as various cousins, uncles, and aunts have had alcohol and drug addiction problems. My biological father drank until he died of a smoking related disease. I don’t think many active alcoholics are successful at quitting smoking so I consider his death alcohol related. Two of my half brothers were killed in separate car accidents which were both extreme DUI accidents. My other half brother was also killed in a car accident but as far as anybody knows he had been clean for awhile when the accident occurred and in fact the accident was the fault of the other driver.

I knew at a young age that since my father was alcoholic that I stood a good chance of also being alcoholic. So it came as no surprise to me when I noticed (and others did also) that my drinking was not like my friends. By the time I was fifteen I’d been in jail and had had many blackouts as well as some stupid and embarrassing incidents.

The reason I wrote this drunk log was two fold. One, it is a reminder to me where I came from and when I’m feeling pretty smug about myself and where I’m at the remember where I came from and where I could easily end up again. But also to possibly be an inspiration to someone else who may be struggling with an addiction problem. My family, friends, and former employers had all pretty much written me off but with (cautious) support from my family  and with guidance from th literature and members of AA I rose from the ashes and actually made myself somewhat of a success at least in my eyes. I know my family is proud of me also.