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zyzylyWhen I was in the air force, I had a friend named Tom. We were roommates and drinking buddies. We shared a house in a crappy little town in Idaho for a winter. It was not a happy time for either of us, and we drank a lot: both to drown our respective sorrows and to ward off the cold.
It was so cold that year. We didn't have very much money, and eventually had to choose between buying heating oil, or enough cheap beer to keep us drunk. We chose the beer, and spent most of the winter in front of an open oven drinking Old Milwaukee. This was the year I stole a christmas tree and decorated it with empty beer cans. This counts as a finalists for "lowest point of my life".
We were both discharged the following spring, and went our separate ways. Tom went to Virginia, and I came back to California. We kept in touch sporadically, and planned a reunion "someday".
About 13 years ago, I gave him a call to see what he was doing. I had just graduated from nursing school. He wasn't doing much of anything. He suggested that I come out to Virginia for a while so we could get drunk and reminisce about old times. I told him I had stopped drinking. He was silent for a minute, then said, "Call me back when you start drinking again", and hung up. That was the last time we talked.
I was thinking about him the other day and did a web search. I found him in the obituary pages. He died last year--the same age as me.
Every so often I am reminded of what a gift it is that I was able to stop drinking when I did. I am again reminded of this.
It was so cold that year. We didn't have very much money, and eventually had to choose between buying heating oil, or enough cheap beer to keep us drunk. We chose the beer, and spent most of the winter in front of an open oven drinking Old Milwaukee. This was the year I stole a christmas tree and decorated it with empty beer cans. This counts as a finalists for "lowest point of my life".
We were both discharged the following spring, and went our separate ways. Tom went to Virginia, and I came back to California. We kept in touch sporadically, and planned a reunion "someday".
About 13 years ago, I gave him a call to see what he was doing. I had just graduated from nursing school. He wasn't doing much of anything. He suggested that I come out to Virginia for a while so we could get drunk and reminisce about old times. I told him I had stopped drinking. He was silent for a minute, then said, "Call me back when you start drinking again", and hung up. That was the last time we talked.
I was thinking about him the other day and did a web search. I found him in the obituary pages. He died last year--the same age as me.
Every so often I am reminded of what a gift it is that I was able to stop drinking when I did. I am again reminded of this.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 02:18 pm (UTC)I, for one, am glad that you did stop drinking since it was such a threat in and to your life.
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Date: 2004-01-13 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:14 pm (UTC)know anything about his family? did his obituary
mention survivors?~paul
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Date: 2004-01-13 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:34 pm (UTC)from that time of my life(U.S. Navy)since i got out.
i was in from 1961-5. i'm not really sure i would
know what to say to some of them. i'm sure that i
would welcome some, but others...paul
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Date: 2004-01-13 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:40 pm (UTC)Lowest Of The Low?
Date: 2004-01-13 03:38 pm (UTC)Re: Lowest Of The Low?
Date: 2004-01-13 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:39 pm (UTC)my low point came after my divorce when i was on 2 bottles of whisky a day.
Although i have not given up drink completely, it is now something that i only do in small amounts and infrequently, and i inwardly laugh when i see old friends wobbling towards me with 20 years of beer around their waist.
best of luck with the none-drinking
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Date: 2004-01-13 04:30 pm (UTC)I respect you. :)
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Date: 2004-01-13 05:29 pm (UTC)and look what you have done with yourself since then. you seem to be giving so much back to the world. bravo! you rock!
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Date: 2004-01-13 05:57 pm (UTC)Over Christmas, I sent a man home to die, my age, with alcoholic cirrhosis. He bled to death in front of his school-age kids. What can I say? You know what we deal with.
Peace
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 07:05 pm (UTC)Tom was a guy you would have liked.