"THE MAN WHO NEVER SHOWED."

It was Sunday, approximately 10:15 a.m. 

Rumor already has it that Bob is here, which is great to hear but also increases my blood pressure. Service just finished, and I was inside the control room waiting for him to come back and give his thoughts. Rumor has it that he likes to give you feedback, so when Bob comes to your service make sure you’re in the back room when he is. I wasn’t leaving the room for anything.

After almost 3 minutes I decided to leave the room.

I simply leaned against the wall right outside the room. That was a safe play because then I’d see him coming, and he’d see me leaning against the wall. I bend my knee and rest my foot against the wall for casual approachability.

Finally, I was approached.

“Do you work here?” asked a 19-yr old kid, who clearly was not Bob.

I immediately got the impression that this kid didn’t clog the toilet. He didn’t just bump into me and strike up a conversation because he had to kill a couple minutes. He had intent behind his steps and a broken smile. Almost hesitant. Almost scared. Almost second-guessing himself.

“I do,” I replied. Compared to his soft voice, it felt as though I was shouting, and my eyes starting darting across the big room to see if anyone else noticed me yelling. A voice like his you only hear when people seem to have lost their hope and are afraid to ask for help, but somehow manage to find the desperate strength to stand directly in front of you asking for help because they have lost their direction, and I don’t mean, "Where’s the bookstore?"

“I’m not looking for prayer right now, but my life has some holes in it, can you help me?”

I don't know what to say to him.

I don't even know how to look at him. But I am. I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me, expecting. Hoping for something from me.

This is what I feared. This is what scared me about working for church - being put in a position to have to act, like right now, for someone else. Someone I don’t know and someone I may never have known if I were to have stayed at my old job - the old, safe, predictable job.

But I recover - quickly. So quickly in fact that I don't think he notices.

"I would love to," I say, quieter.

I tell him my name and asked him to follow me.

My most natural instincts were to look for someone who could better serve this kid than I. So while he’s following me, thinking we’re going to go somewhere and talk, I set out to find that person to better serve him.

In the next thirty seconds, I walked and wondered. What the heck do I do now? Was there an official first step that I was missing? Where is everyone???

“Is this your first time here?”

“No.”

There’s a failed icebreaker.

“Well, it's great to see you,” and shook his hand.

For the next 10 minutes I listened to him share his story of struggle with addiction and sobriety.

OH! This, I knew something about. It surprised me that he was being so open. I was never this open. I was safe in secrecy. Preferred it actually. But, not knowing what to say, I shared my story with him.

In the bookstore - I showed him a Bible that he should buy.

Then, I walked him into the worship center. Everyone was busy. I led him into the gym hoping to bump into our Worship Leader, our Campus Pastor, or our Addiction Recovery Pastor. No one was there. And so we ended up full circle, back in the worship center.

Any other weekend I would have bumped into each of those people three times over, and in my head I’m pulling the hair out of my head because it’s laughable at how AT THIS MOMENT they are not to be found. There has to be a camera rolling right now and a room full of staff members laughing their heads off while I sweat. I’d be laughing if I were in that room right now.

Today, no such timing or luck. Either way I wasn’t getting out of this, and it was then I realized this kid named John was mine.

“Okay, it’s just me. Do Your thing,” was my prayer.

My knees started to shake as we went back to the bookstore. I walked him around so much that he must have worked up an appetite. I should have offered him a donut, but instead I handed him a Bible. He wanted one; I knew where there was one.

“Can you afford to buy one?”
“Nah, I, uh, have no money,” he whispered with his head down.

So I bought him one.

“So, you busy on Thursday night?” It felt odd to ask that to a guy.
“I don’t think so. Not that I know of,” he said back.
“I’m going to be at Quest 180 on Thursday. It’s our addiction recovery ministry. It’d be nice to see ya there. Maybe we can chat.”

We shook hands and he left. I walked back to the control room, wiping the sweat off my palms and onto my pants, wondering if I did or said the right things.

I learned that I didn’t know what the first step is if someone reaches out to me for help.

I learned that on this day, during this hour, this kid had no use for anyone other than me. Someone who didn’t understand his addiction or sobriety issues wouldn’t get the job done.

I learned that my job isn’t just planning and managing church services and then going home. My job is bigger than that. My job affects lives, and I get to be in the trenches.

I learned that when The Man Upstairs has something planned for you, there’s no escape. No matter how uncomfortable you are, He is confident in what He’s doing.

I thought of that scene the rest of the day and the days that were to follow. John's approach. His words. His walk. And why I was the one person that he was able to track down. I don’t believe it was a coincidence. Had I not waited for the man who never showed, John may have left church even more hopeless than when he arrived.

That's failure on a massive scale.

John came to Quest 180 that next Thursday. Again, I shook his hand and smiled at him.

Today, I’m his sponsor and if he truly wants it, I get to be part of helping this kid get his life on track.

"THE TRUTH DOES ALWAYS PREVAIL"

I say everything the same exact volume every time! You hear me, don’t act like you don’t. But again, you create dozens of reasons not to listen.

How am I supposed to get past the shame and guilt of hurting the people I care about?

Make friends with your actions.

Make friends with your actions? I don’t even know what that means.

It means own your actions.

Oh. Ewwwww.

It’s time to grow up, Dennis.

Don’t tell me to grow up, what’s the matter with you? You’re so good, and I’m so bad, right?! Gimme a break.

I’m only saying that it’s time to stop the foolishness. There are things in our life that need to be remedied, now. Continuing to wait is not a good idea. I can feel it creeping.

Creeping, what are you even talking about? What’s creeping?

I don’t know - trouble. More trouble. And not just 60 days in jail.

It’s time to commit to taking steps to make sure you stop doing that stuff, and man-up. Make your apologies face to face, if possible. Not by text.

Face to face apologies? This is why I don’t listen to you. You put me in positions that I don’t like to be in. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for face to face.

You don’t have to be ready, but you have to at least make an attempt. You don’t have to say the right things or admit to your problems, you just have to say - “sorry for hurting you.”

I keep thinking about the times I’ve lost my cool-cuz the alcohol took over. I can’t get it out of my head. And what a psycho everyone must think I am.

Try to see the bigger picture: if alcohol makes you violent, than what other people did or didn’t do to trigger it, isn’t as important.

Whoa, wait, it doesn’t make me violent. Well, it doesn’t usually.

...or makes you a different person. That might be more accurate.

yeah, a different person but doesn’t alcohol make everyone a different person? All my friends are telling me to “let it go.”
How do I do that?
I think I’m screwed here.
I can’t make it better.

Slow down. Slow down.

One thing at a time or things will seem too big to conquer. Only you know what’s best for you, not your friends. Do you want to follow your friends or do you want to be a leader amongst your friends? Understand, your friends will never be able to answer any of this for you.

There are definite patterns, am I right? they’re kinda makin’ me feel like I’m being melodramatic.

I see patterns, you see patterns. Try not to let your friends dictate how you feel.

This struggle is gonna be pretty lonely and difficult without their support.

If your priority is to appease your friends over your own feelings, then do what they say-let it go. But it sounds like you’re finally realizing this is a big deal that goes back a long way.

Does it?
What if I’m wrong?
I don’t know what to think...or feel.
I feel paralyzed.
I have a highly irrational fear that most people are gonna think I’m crazy. So, all of this scares the crap outta me.

You have some tough decisions to make. Stay true to who you are and the kind of person you want to be.

Why would people think you’re crazy.

I always think that. Cuz I act crazy when I drink... a lot of the time.

Well that makes you many things, but I don’t think crazy is one of them. Besides, at some point you’ll have to say “screw what other people think.”

I’m trying to be more like that. I think I succeed when I’m sober. when I have bad nights-it feels like all the good stuff about me is erased.

That’s exactly how I’ve felt. It’s not how often you drink, but when you do, you regret things that you did.

You make me cry. Most people say, “we’ve all been there-you’re fine.”

Maybe your friends aren’t as good as they could be. Plus, maybe they don’t know what to say.

Yeah, they’re probably just trying to make me feel better.

Remember, this isn’t about them or anyone else. It’s about you.

You sure do inspire me. I hope to think how you think some day. I just want peace.

It’s hard work and a lot of truth will have to come out.

So, here’s another part of my pattern...

okay, embarrassing emotional buzz/drunkenness. Get home-hate myself, avoid friends, and family as much as I can, next morning hate myself, tell myself I’m never gonna drink again, deep deep depression...panic attacks from how I acted, a week later feeling better, two weeks later-better than ever, a month later-- let’s go drink again!

Vicious.

The kicker is-- it’s only like this when I like some dysfunctional gal. Which is pretty much always.

Not true, but go on.

My friends say I’m more of a love addict than someone with a drinking problem.

Are your friends addiction counselors?

No, but they think once I fix the girl problem, the drinking will resolve itself.

I’m quite certain the drinking thing won’t fix itself.

I’m just not sure what to do with myself. Everyone-and I mean everyone I tell about the drinking is convinced it’s the relationships I pick and not the drinking thats the problem.

Question: forget your friends for a second, what do you think?

I think if I never felt drunk again my life would improve.

Never feeling drunk is different than never drinking again. You’re still creating loop-holes for yourself. Be strong enough to act on your instincts. You might still pick bad women to date while sober but all the other stuff will start to disappear.

Friends will always give us permission to drink. Always. It’s you that has to have, and enforce, boundaries for yourself.

Yeah.
i have a problem with alcohol.
what do we do to stay sober? Treatment?

Treatment. Then, mentor.

I have a really hard time with step two. I have no faith in anything bigger than me. I barely have faith in me. So... I think that’s my biggest hurdle right now.

The last thing I want to become is a bible thumper... addicted to
religion.

Dennis, all you are responsible for right now is to be open and available for change inside you, and to go. To treatment, to AA meetings, to church... pick one, but let’s go.

Please don't say my name like that. I’m scared, alright?! My fear is that no “normal” girl will wanna date a guy who has relationship and drinking issues. I feel so broken.

Dennis, let me say, it’s only when you are healthy that you find the healthy ones.

......................

“Dennis!”
-Yeah, I’m here.
“We only have a few more minutes.”

I rub my nose of all things for no other reason than to fill the moment with movement. I don’t know why I remember that exact movement at that exact moment. I just do.

“We are all here for the same reason. You’re with friends. It’s safe here.”
-I don’t know what to do. I have a drinking problem and I don’t know what to do from here.

My counselor smiled at me. He just smiled at me as if he was proud of me. He made me feel good about what I had just said.

There it was... finally out in the open. I had protected that secret since I was eighteen years old. I protected that secret with everything I had inside me, since my day one drinking experience. The agonizing feeling that there was something wrong with me for over ten years and the torture of failure everytime I put a drink to my lips.

I can’t tell you the amount of pressure that left my body after admitting I had a problem. And I did, I felt incredibly free. Freedom from myself.
From worry,
from hiding,
from lies,
from stress,
from cover-up after cover-up.

That’s what we do. We cover up anything and everything that might raise a red flag about our secret to anyone who might catch on. We’re so caught up in cover-ups that we don’t realize that people on the outside can see right through our actions.

In that room it felt so reviving that I wanted to scream it from the Empire State building. In that room it felt alright to be who I am. But how would I keep that same feeling outside of those walls?

I had just exposed myself. Not to the world, but to myself, and I would have to carry that with me every day outside of these safe treatment doors. How could I stay free and still protect myself at the same time?

I adopted the philosophy that beyond my family and close friends, nobody else needed to know anything further. I knew, and that would be enough, right? Me, knowing the truth about me, would carry me wherever I needed to go and that would keep me free from judgement and gossip and let-down. At the very least it would keep me strong against judgment, gossip, and let-down.

Turns out, I was wrong.

"THE HALF-SECOND BEFORE MY INNER VOICE GOT THE BEST OF ME."

I remember that it made me really uncomfortable to have everyone looking at me again. And, of course, I was looking at my hands. No one was speaking, but they were waiting for me to utter whatever words came to my head and I didn’t know what to say. I knew what to say, but I didn’t want to. They knew what I should say but not what I wanted to say.

I cannot repeat to you what I wanted to say.

Finally, I asked:

What's the question again?
“Are you an alcoholic.” my counselor said with a period, not a question mark.

I shifted in my seat. I swallowed nothing and then licked my lips as I stared at my thumbs.

What else could I do... I cleared my throat.

Why are you asking me that?
“You’re in a treatment center. Everyone here is here because they cannot control alcohol or drugs and they need help. Are you an alcoholic.”


(SILENCE AGAIN)


In my opinion?
“Sure, Dennis, in your opinion.”

Yes, I was beating around the bush. I was wasting time and maybe you would’ve wasted time too if you were in my seat. I didn’t want to answer this question. All I could do was nervously bounce my leg in place and that was probably all they needed to see.

I knew I had to produce an answer in the next ten seconds or these guys were going to be done with me.

I was going to be done with me.

Amazingly, in the half-second before my inner voice got the best of me and I blurted out an answer, I remembered one of the last conversations I’ve ever had with myself about my drinking.


                     ......................



Dennis, we have a problem.

Houston.

What?

Houston, we have a problem, like in Apollo 13.

We have a problem.

Right! Houston, we have a problem.

WE. You and I have a problem.

Oh. That’s not breaking news.

I’m a little, confused, worried, sad...everything right now. Hope i'm not bothering you?

bothering me is chewing with your mouth open, or leaving wet laundry in the washer for days. (Hint, Hint).

None of our friends are “sold” on the idea that I’m an “alcoholic.”
I guess too soon to tell.

We’ve been arrested three times for DUI - too soon to tell???

I don’t know.

I would argue that you do know.

I feel like deep down I know I have a problem with alcohol. I have faith, first of all, but sometimes my higher power feels like an imaginary friend that I made up. I have issues.

Alcoholic doesn’t mean you are dependent on the stuff. It’s not as bad a word as you want to make it.

It’s assuming that I’m a fall-down drunk when I’m not.

That’s only how you see it.

That’s how everyone see’s it.

You can’t answer for everyone.

So many low points -- other than arrests, jail, sleeping on the sidewalk. I’ve hurt people that I care about while I was wasted. I’d never hurt anyone - not sober anyway. I don’t like being around all the drinking and craziness every weekend.

One drink is too many and 100 isn’t enough.

That doesn’t sound like a question. It sounds snide.

It wasn’t a question. I’m saying that after having one drink, stopping, even after a hundred, is not possible for you.

Maybe. I have some thoughts but don’t know how to word them or put them in some order...

Let ‘em fly and we’ll reword them later.

It seems that just when I think I’ve met someone cool - I let myself drink, I’m hyper aware of my behavior and things go awesome. Then after three or four times of that, I think I’m alright and I drink again and spiral out of control...

Patterns.

My friends think my problem is more with my unhealthy relationships and codependency -- and the alcohol comes when that happens, ya know?
Does any of that make sense?

Your friends, are they addiction counselors?

Oh, and the hurting--of the people I love. You didn't say much about that? Was kinda waiting for an in-your-face: “yeah, that’s a problem” type of comment.

YEAH THAT’S A PROBLEM. But it’s the result of a bigger problem.

Alcohol, right?

Alcohol. Right.

How long have we been sober?

Long enough to start toying with the idea that we’re fine.

And how many times have we relapsed?

Enough to face the fact that alcohol still controls you.

How many times have we tested ourselves?

You keep saying we and us. This is all on you. I’m the voice that’s deep down inside you. I know how you feel and the right decisions for you before you do. You can either listen to me or choose not to. You mostly choose not to. And I've known for a long time that you have to quit.

What ends up happening is - I’ll set a limit for myself. Like, 30 days of no drinking. After 2-3 weeks, I’ll be at a get-together and have one - to appease people and go with the flow.

You've never been able to do that.

But I didn't get drunk! I had one drink in thirty days. I can do it easier in the winter. Summer is harder.

OMG! You just blamed your drinking problem on the seasons?!? That’s a first. It’s typical for you to blame things and people, but the seasons?? What a joke. It just proves you can’t stop for even thirty days...

Well it's true, what? I don’t know.

Your worry is that if you aren't drinking people will notice and they might think you had a problem, which you do. So you drink, and then get drunk, and then keep drinking, and then don’t stop, and then they do think you have problems.

If I go “sober” it would just cut out that many more women to date. Still single, getting older, doesn't drink - boring! NEXT!!

My life has been a roller coaster of unhealthy relationships with bad women -- even though I always want “more.” More of a commitment that is...

You don’t have to explain, I know how you feel.

So I drink just to feel normal around them.

If you’re sober, you’re not cutting out that many more women to date, maybe you're closing the door to all the dysfunctional ones.

I’m alone-and have hurt people and I've let so many hurt me. For what??? Instant gratification? The price of a drink?


You know this, I go to parties and choose not to drink all the time and it’s almost as though some of my friends are offended that I’m not drinking. Good point, the dysfunctional closing door point.

No offense but first, you rarely choose not to drink--

--You don’t know what you’re talking about. A million times I've drank and a million times I've not drank or had only a couple.

“Only a couple.” You have chosen that, yeah, but it’s nowhere near the millions of times you think it is. Secondly, maybe the friends who get offended when you rarely don’t drink need you to keep drinking so they can keep drinking.

I have flashbacks of moments that I hurt good people. The shame and guilt is fierce.

Agreed. Are you planning on apologizing to anyone?

I've texted people but it doesn't make my behavior right. I’m a mess, and I keep driving home.

Don’t do that anymore.

Thanks. As if I didn't know.

Well it appears you didn't.

That’s like telling someone who wets the bed not to do that, which they already know and wish they didn't do in the first place, but can’t control what they’re doing while they are sleeping...

Well if you were sleeping while you were driving home drunk then I guess that makes it okay.

I wasn't sleeping but I was pretty drunk each time. I’m so stupid when I’m drunk and I always feel like I have to prove to dad that I can go out, not drink, and still make it home on my own. So that’s why I drive home.

I was so right when I first told you to quit drinking a long time ago.

Maybe if you would've said things louder?

So it's back to my fault now. You don't get it.



(to be continued)

"NO HARD FEELINGS. --ME."

In some treatment centers the tradition goes that you should write a goodbye letter. In some treatment centers it is a must-do. When I was asked to write one I could only write what came to mind.


Our problems have more to do with me, and less to do with alcohol, so I don’t really see what a goodbye letter would accomplish.

I have always been uncomfortable and afraid to drink because I never knew when the switch was going to switch. That’s not alcohol's fault. It’s mine for not doing something about it when I first noticed it, and for being afraid to not drink.

Plus, Alcohol didn't make me drink so why -- ?

Plus, I totally disagree that an addiction is like a mistress: “…you were always there for me throughout the good times and the bad, you were my comfort, my peace, my joy, you were there for me when I was lonely, blah blah blah” but so is a glass of milk.

Plus, I would never “break-up” with it. I enjoy it. I've never even been mad at it. I guess I've been upset with it from time to time, but, to its credit, it always redeemed itself by promising me a better next time.

Plus, alcohol didn't do anything it wasn't supposed to. I wanted it to get me drunk. I should send a thank you letter. I’m not “breaking-up” with it because it did what I wanted, that's crazy, I'm breaking up because I can’t seem to keep pace with it.

This is about about me.

I've spent countless hours secretly tracking it. I always knew exactly where it was, who it was with, where it was going to be, and I magically wound up in the same room with it every time.

It’s so easy to say yes to you that it hurt to say no.

I would love to blame you, but it’s not you, it’s me. No, seriously, it really isn't you, it’s me. Seriously, I’m not giving you a line, it’s not you. I’ve caught on to my own game. I have the tools now to know that you are who we thought you were; neither good nor bad. But, I have been, up until this very second, who I never grew up wanting to be: weak and prideful and stubborn and egotistical.

And stupid.

I relied on you for things. Witty one-liners, confidence that I was unsure about, to hide some of the insecurities I didn't want anyone to see, as barriers between certain people - I won’t list them because the list is pretty long. So how about this-

To whom it may concern,

Thank you, but I no longer need you to stand in front of me.

No hard feelings right?

Me.

"I CONSIDER MYSELF LUCKY ON TWO FRONTS: 1. I’VE NEVER DONE DRUGS, 2. MY BOTTOM WAS NOT AS DEEP AS HIS."

I could have taken the easy route through treatment.

I had read between the lines. Nobody had to tell me to recognize. 

If I went to treatment I was going to have to finally pick sides: publicly answer incredibly personal questions about myself that I already knew but never wanted to release, or continue to ignore them.

Both options suck.

I wanted to run and ignore. I wonder if this is how Hollywood Execs feel when they know they have a box-office bust on their hands. Like Jawbreaker, or BASEketball, or anything that Keanu Reeves is in. Trust me, I wanted to run.

If I would have [run], where would I be now? Would I be typing this book and sipping a cup of coffee while listening for Lily to stir in her crib? Would I be typing this book and sipping a cup of coffee while waiting for Cole to wake from a long night’s sleep, recharged and over-anxious to start his day? Would Heidi even be in my life, let alone my wife?

Or worse - Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be here anymore.

Whichever end-result I U-turned from, Today I raise my hands to God for the blessings that I’ve done little to deserve.

I will keep choosing God. I will keep choosing to be present. I will do the hard work because we don’t know what He’s doing behind the scenes. When I started treatment I had no idea that the payoff was going to bring these kinds of rewards.

For me, it started day one with the 12 step review.

Step 3-Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. Do you know how many times God is mentioned or referred to in the Steps? 10 times, at least, by my count depending on which version you read. That didn’t turn me away, but, I wasn’t running towards it either.

Growing up, we went to church either every saturday at St. Rita, or every sunday at Our Lady Guadalupe, where, if you remember, we would also win the 1990 talent show, performing The Blues Brothers and finishing the night in a dance-off like in West Side Story. Tom would have been Tony and some local would have been Bernardo. It was fun. The Jets won that too.  

Then I became an adult and you let me decide for myself if I would continue to attend church or not. I did, and didn’t. Let’s just say when I did, it was for reasons other than God. Call it guilt, points, staying on your good side, fear, or meeting a pretty senorita. Other than making sure my butt was in church for sure twice a year, church eventually fell off my radar.

Treatment was similar. For the first few weeks I sat there in my chair. Indifferent. Not fully participating, not fully absent. I wasn’t a mute in group, I laughed at what was funny, I jaw-dropped during stories that were jaw-dropping, and I raised eyebrows while sliding down my seat enough to be unnoticed during stories that made me feel like the elephant in the room. 

In other words, I recognized behaviors of other addicts that sounded almost identical to how I felt inside.

Nobody knew I could relate to how they felt inside and that’s how I liked it, but from my chair and down deep deep inside me where absolutely nobody has ever been allowed - I knew I was like them. 

I mean, I didn’t look like them. 

I didn’t dress like them. 

I didn’t live like them. 

I didn’t have the same beliefs as them. 

I didn’t party like them. 

I didn’t do drugs like them. 

I didn’t treat others the way they did. 

I didn’t have the same childhood as them. 

I didn’t hate myself like they did. 

I didn’t skip out on work the way they did.

But it didn't matter becuase I had the same switch as them.

My personal examples aren’t so much evidence of an alcoholic as much as they are evidence of an incredibly stupid drunk that nobody wants to be around, but they are the result of what happens when the switch flips and you continue to drink without knowing you're still drinking.

The switch. The switch is something inside me that goes off - or maybe - goes on - when I drink. I don’t know when it’s going to happen or if it’s going to happen, but when it does go-on, or go-off, I lose control of myself, my drinking, my words, my behavior, my brain... I completely black-out.


It was the unbelievable horror story of someone in my group recalling his rock bottom experience that scared me the most. Scared me because there is nothing to say it couldn’t have happened to me, can't still happen to me, and scared me because I could relate.


I have to tell you this story:

He had been sober for close to two years. Some old friends came calling and being that it was Thursday, he would have to be back home for work the next morning, so what an ideal time to show his friends, by example, that they didn’t have to use to have fun.

Off he went. Kissed the wife, kissed the kids.

Half-way through the night he loosened his grip and ordered a drink. His buddies loved it and he felt comfortable with it

When morning came he opened his eyes from the pain in his head and in his arm. Fresh tracks, that hadn’t been there for almost two years were back. He says that to this day, he has no idea what he did or how he ended up so far away. He collected himself as much as you can when your clothes are ragged, wrinkled and stink. He gathered himself, and walked around and it was only while he was walking around aimlessly that he started to recognize nothing. He was so lost that he finally had to ask a street-walker where he was. This man looked at my group member like he was a plate of leftovers before revealing, “Philly, man.”  Just before the street-walker walked away my group member touched his this strangers arm and asked him what day it was. “Tuesday, man.” My group member lost the color in his face, lost the spirit in his eyes, lost the breath in his lungs. The stranger asked, “Do you need help?” My group member said yes, I need to call my wife.

A four day blackout. A binge that took days to run its course. This persons bottom started with a drink in Minneapolis and ended by waking up on the sidewalk next to a garbage dumpster with a headache in PHILADELPHIA.

From that day, I’ve considered myself lucky on two fronts: 1. I’ve never done drugs, and 2. my bottom was not as deep as his.

So, how do I relate with that story? It’s embarrassing and it’s immature and it’s selfish and it’s reckless and I don’t buy the decree that it’s not all my fault, but, I’ve blacked out before.

Reckless & Immature: Freshman year of college I gave a friend a ride home from the most crowded bar in town and I only remember getting in the car. Freshman year?!! How old are you as a freshman, 18?. Reckless.

Embarrassing: More than a couple years ago, I woke up downstairs spread eagle across the futon with an entire tin of Long-Cut Skoal spilled all over me as if I thought it was a blanket to keep me warm and I only remember waking up flat on my back spread eagle across the futon smelling an entire tin of Long-Cut Skoal spilled all over me. I figured that you knew for sure about the spilled chew and was waiting for me to show face, but to this day I’ve never cleaned a room faster than that one hung-over morning. I don’t want to know if you knew about this.

Selfish: Summer of my sophomore year at college I lived on Como Ave on the UM campus. I went out to North Mpls and time, not booze, erased the memory of who I was with. I was told it was a good time, and apparently I had fun. All I remember was that I was trying to walk all the way home. I saw some guys sitting on their front stoop. I didn’t know them. I’d never seen them before. I never knew they existed on this planet earth until the moment I spotted them from a blurred distance. I walked up to their porch that was being used as a smoking station. I managed to explain to them that I was lost and needed a ride home. Miraculously, one of those guys offered. I was grateful, and so upon entering the car of a guy I had no idea ever existed on this planet earth until the moment I spotted them from a blurred distance; I told him how to get me home, if I were still living in Cottage Grove. I simply didn’t notice my mistake until he merged onto 94E and I said:

Where are you going?
“You said get on 94 East”
Careful, there’s a cop behind y---

And he was immediately pulled over and busted for possession of marijuana and driving under the influence. Me, I gave the police the correct address and they brought me home. I never knew this kid before that night. I never even knew his name-so I’ll call him Tim, and if I’ve ever seen Tim again in my life I would never know it. He knew me five minutes and was charged with marijuana possession and arrested for DUI. I don’t know the rest of Tim’s story but that night may also have been his best night because he would never see me again. Sorry, Timmy.

For no reason at all, I’ve kept that story secret for the last 18 years.

So, the story from my group, about the guy ending up in Philly is the story that scared me straight. Blacking out is serious business. How many times do I still think back and make myself sick with worry about the damage I could have inflicted to an unknown number of people? How easy it would have been for me to ruin countless lives, or even my own?

I’m convinced that God was watching over me.

Why was God watching over me?

Mid-sentence of that thought: “Why is God watch--,” my counselor summed things up this way:

“You don’t have to be a fall-down drunk to be an alcoholic. It doesn’t matter if you drink every minute of the day, or once a year during Thanksgiving; if you can’t control your drinking, you have a problem.”

If I would have been staring at him instead of my feet, my money says he was looking directly at me. He should have been. That was my beef with the term ‘alcoholic’.

As an addict, if I had a few different options for what to do on any given night, I would rearrange whatever schedule I had so that I could hang out with the crowd that was going to be out drinking. That means, if I had to inconvenience my entire day, just to ensure that by the end of the night I ended up where the drinking was - consider it done. Didn’t matter to me who got the shaft.

Spend the day together as a family? How about we spend just a couple hours together so I can make last-call. Drive together out of town? How about I meet you there so I can do my thing the night before and still have time to heal before meeting up with you. Want to hit church together Sunday morning? How about I change my entire Saturday schedule so that we can hit the early service, that way I can still make it out for the night and not have to worry about showing up to church in noticeably rough shape.

Those examples don’t even begin to scratch the surface to what lengths of deceit and selfishness we’re capable of.

On the night of my third DUI, we went out to the MOA for Dad’s birthday. I think it was “Players” at the time, but even if it wasn’t, I remember it was on that top floor that is now basically closed down. Everyone was there... Toni, Angie, Nick, You, Dad, me. I was the only one who cut out early, remember? I don’t even think anyone was done eating before I cleared my plate and walked off. I still think about that night, but now my thoughts are on how much that might have hurt Dad. And you. It was so disrespectful and rude. Let me come clean Mom, my mind wasn’t on Dad’s birthday in the Mall of America. It was on Coach’s Bar and Grill in River Falls, Wisconsin.

Dad, not only did I cut out early on your birthday, but I went out and got arrested on your birthday, with your truck that you let me borrow.

Stupid.

That’s all I have to say about that.