100 Things about this ex-drunk

Gabi wrote out the 100 things about her because she has written 100 post, out of curiosity I checked and I have written just over 100 post myself. So like Gabi did I am going to share a bit of me with you. Gabi's is far better than this but her life is a bit more interesting than mine. What follows if pretty much in chronological order and mostly revolves around my alcoholism which is what my life has revolved around either active or in recovery. There is some downer stuff but it isn't there out of self pity but was part of my emotional turmoil at that time in my life. I also forgot to mention that I am the youngest of 4 kids, my brother is 14 years old then me, I have a sister 13 years old and my youngest sister is 9 years old, I am the only one with dark hair, my dad's side, my siblings all have red or reddish blond hair, my mom's whole family, the milkman's son jokes aren't true because I am so much my father's son. I was raised pretty much as an only child because my siblings had left home by the time I was 9. I was also raised with physical and emotional abuse but I didn't think about when writing since I have forgiven my parents they didn't know what they were doing at the time and later in life regretted most of it.

100 THINGS ABOUT ME

1. I was born in Nampa Idaho

2. Moved to Tacoma Washington when I was 4, lived there until I was 9

3. My parents moved my city butt to a farm in central Nebraska when I was 9; the closest town was 6 miles away and had a population of 225 . We spent that summer living with my 2 bachelor uncles and paternal grandpa while my dad remodeled a house a mile away that would become my our home

4. I was a frail and very anxious kid so farm life didn’t work for me nor my uncle’s dream of having a little farm hand, in my teens I would end of helping though.

5. I found a momma mouse and a bunch of young ones in a drawer of the old house my dad was remodeling , I screamed and my uncle grab the drawer and proceed to kill the mice with his pliers, to this day I don’t like mice or rats

6. I would ride a bus 6 miles to the main town then transfer and ride for another 12 miles to another town where grades 4-6 where schooled.

7. I was not accept by most of my male peers and only a handful of female peers so in the 4Th grade I turned inward

8. At 9 years old I would find my grandpa’s discarded whiskey bottles and suck down that last little bit

9. I experience suicidal feelings for the first time when I was 10

10. I made my first suicidal jester at 17

11. I made my last and most serious at 24

12. I started developed a facade around my knowledge of booze, drugs and rock and roll in the 6Th grade something that would serve me well, it gave me an identity, party boy and rock and roll animal

13. I was forced by school protocol to take shop classes my 7Th and 8Th grade years and hated it as much as the teacher hated me

14. I started hanging out with the “bad” kids in the 7Th grade, we would smoke cigarettes in an outhouse at the town park during lunch period

15. We must have smelled awful, average of 10 kids crammed in a 2 hole outhouse smoking with little ventilation
16. As we got older we would smoke at the local tavern over our lunch period, play pool, pinball and listen to the juke box

17. I started getting a few beers now and then from my older sister and a cousin when I was 14

18. My best friend moved to a town 20 miles away when we were in the 9Th grade but as fate would have it my aunt lived there so my mom would drop me off at his house

19. My first car was a 64 Rambler American but it didn’t last long because my sister owned it before me and she ruined the engine from not keeping the oil filled

20. My next car was a 74 Pinto wagon, I mounted a Kraco under dash cassette player in it and thought I was cool shit, cranking AC/DC, Cheap Trick, Nazareth and the like

21. The summer of my 16th year I started working in that town 20 miles away and my drinking career took off.

22. The first time I drank as much as I possibly could I puke but it never stopped me from drinking every Friday and Saturday night after that or any other chance I had

23. I worked in a real gas station with full service pumps and minor repairs

24. I would have friends bring beer to me at work, hide it in the ice machine, pour the beer into a Mountain Dew can and drink it at work

25. Over 20 years later I would being doing the same thing at a convenience store I worked at part time, later in the evenings I would drink beer while stocking the cooler, I would eat Corn Nuts to cover the smell, so I thought

26. Drinking and drive around on country roads became a way
of life for me and my friends, so did partying in cornfields, and seclude county ponds, I use to drive home in blackouts or drunk off my ass on gravel roads a lot also

27. I joined the Army National Guard when I was 17 because my best friend did

28.Between my junior and senior years of high school I was at Fort Knox, KY learning to be a tanker

29. I was a terrible soldier, I was too weak and too anxious but I did make it though basic training some how

30. Alcohol and pot use where an acceptable part of weekend warrior life but I came close to getting kick out for abusing both

31. The most common comment on the back of pictures giving to me by school mates is; really sweet and kind guy who likes to party a lot

32. I tried going to community college after high school but dropped out after a couple of months because I spent more time drinking and working than I did studying, this was also the beginning of isolation drinking

33. I joined the Air Force when I was 19 because I had no direction in life

34. I spent 10 years in the Air Force and finished my career in the Iowa Air Guard, total time serviced in all branches of the military 21 years

35. My first duty station was in Korea, I started drinking daily there but never got in trouble for it

36. I have been to the Philippines and experienced things I rarely tell anyone about

37. My next stop was in Utah for 4 years, loaded bombs on F-16 fighter jets

38. I spent a month outside of Bergen Norway once and to this day it is my favorite place in the world

39. I spent a few weeks in Ecuador, witnessed a Marxist riot at a college there, ate a lot of horse steaks and drink a lot of cheap beer and sangria

40. I was also in Jordan for a couple of weeks, walked around the ancient city of Petra, which is an amazing place

41. My last few months in Utah where accompanied by heavy depression due to alcoholism and lack of solid female relationships, who wants to date a depressed drunk

42. I left Utah and returned to Korea, by then I was drinking prior to going to work to steady my shakes

43. Within 3 months I was in the hospital with stitches in my wrist

44. God put a wise psychologist in my path who told me my troubles weren’t due mental health issues but from alcoholism, I was actually fairly honest with him about how much I drank

45. My last drink of alcohol for over 9 year on was November 4th 1987

46. My first AA meeting was in a little tin hut adjacent to the base chapel

47. My first service position was to show up early and light the oil stove that provided heat for the meeting and start the coffee

48. I was taken under the wings of my fellow alcoholics, nurtured back to emotional, spiritual and physical health

49. Every Friday we would go out to eat and then watch a movie at someone’s dorm room, it was in Korea that I really learned what Fellowship was all about, it was survival for us since life on a military base in Korea revolves around drinking and messing with prostitutes

50. I attended a joint American and Korean AA convention in Seoul in 1988, really interesting experience

51. My next move was to England, about 30 miles north of Cambridge

52. We only had 1 meeting on base but would travel to Cambridge or other towns for meetings

53. I developed close friendships with my local AA’s, some were English, some were Irish and a few were Scot’s

54. My home group was in an old insane asylum, how appropriate is that

55. I have been to Stonehenge 3 times and each time it has been over cast which really creates a mystical effect

56. I have stood and read the very same tombstone Bill W writes about on the first page of his story

57. My ex-wife was English

58. My ex moved in with me really soon after we met and by the time I was vaguely aware that I didn’t love her it was too late to call off the wedding

59. I tried to love my ex as one should love a spouse but I couldn’t so I lived in a lie for 6 years

60. My ex was a pharmaceutical junkie and I couldn’t fix her

61. My ex had to have a complete hysterectomy when she 30 for medical reasons

62. My daughter is adopted

63. My daughter’s biological mother was one of my trainees and couldn’t keep and raise her

64. My daughter was a preemie, she weighed in at 3lb 10oz and spent the first 6 weeks of her life in the hospital, my ex and I were there every day

65. I was station in the high desert of California when my daughter was born

66. I got out of the Air Force in 1992 and moved back to Nebraska

67. My parents and family never really liked my ex much, mainly because of her drug problem

68. My ex made 3 suicide attempts in 1996 and after the 3rd one I told her the marriage was over with for the stake of my daughter and myself

69. I moved from the comfort of my home AA community to the city I actually worked in, 30 miles away

70. Living in Nebraska has taught me to think nothing of living in a small town and driving 20 to 30 miles one way each day to work or meeting

71. The people at the meetings in the city I move to where not overly friendly and I wasn’t allow to take my daughter to meetings like I was use to, so I stopped going to meetings, I had 9 years of sobriety, my problem not theirs

72. Sometime in the late winter of 1997 I bought a 6 pack of NA beer, non-alcoholic, which really has .01% alcohol in it, “a thimble full”

73. That 6 pack lead to buying cases of NA beer because it was cheaper that way and I was drinking at least 6 a night, denial sets in

74. I started drinking real beer within a few months after drinking the NA beer, it would be 10 years before I drew a sober breathe for longer than a week

75. My parents enabled me greatly during those 10 years, something they did for my daughter more than me and something I am not proud of

76. My ex committed suicide in February of 2000, her death has caused me more mental anguish than it has my daughter

77. I use to drive drunk with my daughter and her friends in the car a lot, something else that makes me sick to think about today, Thank God I never hurt or killed anyone

78. My old habit of driving around on country roads while drinking became a major part of my life again

79. I received 2 DUI’s within an 11 month period, prior to that I never had so much as a speeding ticket

80. I have went to jail twice for bad check charges, it was on my last trip to jail for bad checks that I decided I needed help for my drinking, the image of my daughter watching me being taken away in a cop car kept going over and over in my head as I lay on that hard bench

81. I voluntarily entered treatment on November 29th 2006 and haven’t had a drink since thanks to God, AA and the people in recovery

82. My collection of CD’s is at around 500,

83. The main artist are Dylan, Allman Brothers, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Waylon, Kris Kristofferson, Indigo Girls, Nanci Griffith, Steve Earle, Rush, Buddy Guy, Heart, Blackmore’s Night, Grateful Dead, Alison Krauss, Little Feat, Bob Marley, Johnny and Rosanne Cash, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and a splattering of alt country, punk, jazz, jazz fusion, progressive rock, blues, blues fusion, folk/Americana, contemporary pop, rock and country

84. I do most of my own cooking and I don’t use prepackage foods very often with the exception of cake mixes and bread, this winter I plan on making my own bread from scratch without a bread machine

85. I would rather eat Asian food than any other type

86. I am afraid of heights unless I am enclosed like on an airplane or building, climbing on roof's is someone else's gig not mine

87. I won’t kill a spider if I can help it and if someone is bothered by a spider I just pick the spider up and move it

88. I love all animals and have a natural connection to them

89. I hate wearing a lot of clothes in the privacy of my own home, of course I live a one so this is possible

90. God willing I will retire to the country, a nice small acreage where I can have a garden, orchard, lots of dogs, a few cats, ducks, chickens for egg’s and a few horses for riding, a place to live out my days, reading, writing and being at peace with my God and nature

91. I am usually reading at least one book, my coffee table has 3 on it right now

92. I don’t have any form of television broadcasts coming in to my home, my TV is for watching DVD’s

93. I love science fantasy, stuff with magical creatures and magical people

94. I believe in the values of King Arthur as much as those of Jesus and Buddha

95. I wear a small silver loop earring because I am a bit alternative and a bit bohemian

96. When I am working in the earth I feel my ancient Celtic blood in my veins and wonder if there wasn’t a Druid or 2 in my linage

97. I am not overly materialistic but do take pride in what I have and proudly display the stuff I have bought from other countries

98. I wear mostly earth tones, black being the norm with burgundy, gray and deep purple coming in after that

99. I once broke my nose power puking in the toilet, I was in a blackout and didn’t know it happened until the next morning

100. I only have one tattoo and it is of a vulture clutching a bone and is located on my right bicep, the old patience my ass vulture

Well campers now you know a portion of my drunkalog and history. I don't like everything about the life I have lived so far but I don't regret it either, it can be my greatest asset in staying sober when I run the "wouldn't a" tape all the way through. God willing I never have to repeat the past and neither do you!!!!!!!

Peace Love and Light
Scott