WELCOME

my name is tony, im an alcoholic.....

What it was like:

i had my first intentional drink at age 14, it was new years eve of 1982....if id know what the next 8 years held for me, id have stopped there. i remember drinking that night. i remember mixing beer with liquor...drink half a beer and pour in jack daniels, drink half of that and pour jim beams, etc....needless to say, i came to in the back of some guys trans-am, covered in vommit and unable to remember the last several hours. this is how i was going to drink for the rest of my drinking days: blacked out and vomitting...and loving it!!

at 15 i found a new passion that mixed well with alcohol...PUNK ROCK....i knew that i must emulate that which was i heard in the music...anarchy, destruction and freedom...i ran away from home and lived on the streets. i lived in abandon houses, ate from dumpsters, panhandled for beer (and more than occaisionally stole it). i lived on the street pretty much full time from 16-19, and developed a reputation for being insane. in blackouts i would do just about anything, and was often uncontrolable...and loved the stories of what i did as told by the people who would still talk to me the next day.

at 19 i got off the streets, and into a small room (8'x12') in a boarding house. i began to drink alone in the privacy of what would become my own prison cell. there were also a lot of drugs, especially favored were Meth and LSD....at 19 i was 6'1 and 135 pounds, walking dead is what my friends walked me...destruction was inevitable.

later that year i went to a party and blacked out (as usual), i ended up a block or so away from the party and broke into a dentist office and started detoring every thing. i came to with cops pointing guns at my head and a cop dog trying to chew my leg off...from jail i tried to call my folks to bail me out, but they decided it was time once again to practice "tough love", however my dad told me he had a friend who hadnt drank in a long time, and i should talk to him when i got out.

when i got out, i thought maybe i should meet this guy, so i called. we made a time to meet at dennys and talk. i met this old guy (in his 40's..lol) Mike E. and he told me a story of how he drank, what happened to him and what his life was like at that time. he said i didnt have to drink again if i didnt want to, and then he gave me a book. this book had a leather cover with praying hands on it...i knew i wouldnt read it...it was about god and i didnt need to know any more religious crap. he also gave me the number of a guy more my age that would take me to meetings. so i called him. he took me to a meeting and all i heard was "god" mentioned 3 times (serenity prayer, ch. 5) and i tuned out. he came by the next day and took me to a meeting, all heard in that one was "if you didnt fall off your bar stool like me, you arent an alcoholic"...i drank under bridges. on the 3rd day when he came by, told him those fatal words "I CAN DO IT MYSELF", and i gave hime back the book tath Mike had lent me (they book i hadnt read), and he left.

i figured my fear of a six month jail sentence would be enough to keep me on the straight and narrow....and it did....until i forgot.

things went while for the most part. i quit drinking, i quit meth and put on 60 pounds, my probation officer was even talking about letting me off probation 2 and a half years early! however one day after work i forgot i was staying sober and went to the bar. i got drunk. and continued drinking, as if i had never stopped. after missing a couple appointments with my P.O. and deciding to move to washington with my preganant girlfriend, the game was back on. we lasted in washington about six months. when we got back, the day after we got back, her mother called the cops to let them know i was back in town (how nice).

so off to jail i went. i missed my daughter being born and theres nothing worse than seeing your child for the first time from behind glass windows. i got out of jail a few months later and started back into the same behavior...

What happened:
in july of 1991 i was doing pretty well, money in the bank, a car and vacation time!
i went to a party with some friends of mine and got pretty well wasted....at about 3 in the morning we all ran out of cigarettes so i volenteered to go get more. thirty minutes later i was involved in a car wreck that would change my life.

i wasnt alone in the car, which is why it affected me so much. as the car went over the curb and tires blew out, i thought to myself "i cant live this way anymore". at the hospital later that day (july 11th, 1991) i called Alcoholics Anonymous. an oldtimer named Tom answered the phone and said "we've been waiting for you", later i learned that Tom said this to everyone...
anyway, Tom told where i could find a meeting. when i got there, i took a seat and this old lady looked over at me and said "dont worry kid, it'll be OK". and it was, though i had doubts because it was only 22 and the next youngest person in this meeting was around 40 or so...i found younger folks at other meetings.

What its like now:
it aint all roses!! ive worked the steps and have become a totally different person than i was 17 years ago. however i still have a lot of character defects like selfishness and self centeredness, but im working on it :) i still try to work with others and trudge on....

so i hope this blog turns into something of interest, sharing my experiences and hopefully y'all will share your strength and hope! warning though, im told im still sick in the head, so some of my posts may be inappropriate...but it oughtta make you laugh!