Continuity 2.8 Sobriety and Grief

Today, I am one year sober after 52 years of drinking. I was pretty good at drinking. Here’s a brief history of my life with the bottle.
Drinking started for me at age 19. For the first few years, it started as a weekend thing, or whenever I got together with friends, we’d have a few beers. When I became a professional musician, it was part of the lifestyle. We worked a lot, and we drank a lot. My heroes were musicians, and the better you got, the more you drank. I remember many nights with the band when we’d split a bottle of Jack Daniels between our second and third sets in just 20 minutes. Our performance was sloppy, but the crowds loved it. Being drunk and playing music seemed like the way to go.
In the mid-1970s, I lived in Boulder, Colorado. It was a musician’s hot spot, with plenty of work available. We were the house band at Peggy’s Hi-Lo on the diagonal between Boulder and Longmont. My band backed up a singer who wanted to be Elvis or Waylon Jennings, and we played 4 sets a night, 5 nights a week, Sunday through Thursday. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played Good Hearted Woman. Drinks were free for the band, and I became a professional at consuming. It was a cowboy bar in Boulder in the 70s, a pretty wild place. I was riding home with the other guitar player one night, about 3:15 in his perfect 1963 blue and white Chevy Pickup. All of a sudden, there was a huge bang, and the truck came to a stop. We had hit a cow and thrown him about 40 feet. The animal was dead; the truck was ruined. Did we learn anything? Don’t hit cows.
Working 5 nights a week and getting well paid, $100.00 a night per member, was great for 1975, and it gave me the weekends to work with a group that was more serious about music. We’d rehearse in the afternoon and drink, a real proving ground for success.
In 1980, I moved to New York City and went to work for Hit Factory. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, NJ. On the second floor above Maxwell’s Punk club. My bed was above the stage, the bands played till 3 am, and I drank myself to sleep many nights.
I stayed in the music industry as an engineer and post-production mixer until I left in 1988 to pursue my personal photography. A drink was never far out of reach.
When I was 15 and 16, I hurt both knees and had the cartilage removed, which was the treatment at that time. I’ve been bone on bone since then, alcohol became my pain reliever, and I turned to it when I was in pain.
In 1992, I was the victim of a violent armed takedown in a retail camera store by three people with automatic weapons. For some reason, I was singled out and beaten and threatened with my life if I didn’t give over their money. I had no idea where it was. There were 15 people in the store. I could hear a couple of the women weeping for their lives as I lay face down on the carpet. I had nightmares for years afterward. Drinking would kill the mental pain and put me to a very troubled sleep. It took a brilliant psychologist to treat me for PTSD in 1996 to bring me back to the real world.
Fast forward through the next 30 years, and a drink was my go-to for any pain relief. I had total knee replacements of both of my knees. Alcohol would calm my nerves before surgery and act as a pain reliever after surgery during recovery. I have a hard time with any opiates; they upset my stomach to the point where even 5 mg can cause me to throw up. Not good if you are in severe pain.
Fast-forward again to losing Woody. As I recount in the book, I drank a lot, way too much. I was losing communication with my wife. I couldn’t work; I’d sit in my chair and stare. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, a bell would start to ring in my head, and I had to have a drink or three.
As my work with Ophilia deepened, significant changes began to occur within me. I was sitting in my music studio at three one afternoon with a drink poured. I looked at it and said, “This isn’t my path anymore”. I stopped and poured it out.
I will not say that quitting cold turkey after 52 years was easy. My body revolted. I kept in touch with my GP and told him what was going on. I felt awful; I’d lie on the bed under a blanket and shake. I couldn’t eat. My GP stayed in touch and would encourage me to go one more day. It lasted three weeks, but I came out the other side. In no way am I advocating for the way I stopped; I could have died, but I’m still here. I have no attraction to alcohol – I can be around it with no feeling of wanting it. I know it’s hard for my friends when I don’t indulge.
Today, I am 1 year down the new path of sobriety.
It takes courage.