Back to Alameda

After my trip to Mexico and the negative results, I decided to come back to Alameda. Got a room intending to detox from my latest destructive run. My friend was not into this change and became bored. Then she met another guy staying at the motel and she was gone. I was happy about this development, realizing this was not going to work out. Overall, it was doomed from the start. I started going to AA meetings, attempting to deal with the pain without anything to help with it. I did OK for sometime, renting an apartment, getting settled in and not drinking. A friend I met in AA helped me retrieve my stuff from Oregon. We drove up there and while we were there, I looked up my friends from my last stay in Roseville. One of them who my friend was attracted to was my future wife, Anita. After returning to California, I started drinking again, as pain and loneliness overcame me again. I have never done well living alone, but being insecure about how others might regard my injuries and a shyness condition I’ve never been able to overcome led me to bad habits again. Reflecting on all the times I have used drugs or booze to medicate my feelings and pain, I am surprised I am still alive and healthy. My life had evolved into going to one recovery program after another. My thoughts were continuously depressed and hopeless. I was not breaking out from the depression. I tried a chronic pain clinic in Marin to try again to get help. The doctors agreed that narcotics would be the only thing that could help me, but their program was not about prescribing pain medications. So I was out and about, again. There was one nice (I thought at the time) development while I was in the pain clinic. I began corresponding with my future wife and was hopeful this would turn out to be a good thing. I was so wrong, but it took a while to find out. I need to say, despite all these negative occurrences with attempting to control pain, I finally succeeded many years ago getting it all under control. I don't drink like I used to and my medications have worked well for me for seven years now.

A trip to Mexico.

I ended up moving back into my original house I had started, with the owner wanting me to leave, and my refusal to that, leading to a confrontation. I eventually went back to the VA and another program. Here I was in another 30-day program. I lost track of how many programs I have been in at this point. This turned out to be another waste of time, because when I left the program after thirty days I went to a bar and was drinking again. The pain problem was overwhelming me. I ran an advertisement looking for a women who wanted to go to Europe with me, because my thinking was I could get pain relief over there. I found a young girl who wanted to make the trip, but she could not get a passport, because of some problem with the government at the time, so we went to Mexico. Just another disaster for me. I ended up in a motel room down there, just drinking until my Aunt who was visiting a friend came by and returned me to the US and the VA hospital near San Diego. I was there for a few hours while they detoxed me and then decided to come home to Alameda. I need to say despite all these negative occurrences with attempting to control pain, I finally succeeded many years ago getting it all under control. I do not drink like I once did and my medications have worked well for me for seven years now.

Trying to make it work.

I really wanted to do something positive for myself and help others. I opened a recovery house that I rented, while this house was being remodeled. This was a good deal, because the owner who was doing the remodel was open to designing the house and it's rooms so I could have as many rooms as possible. This worked out well for a while. I had an apartment in the back of the house where two apartments were available and I rented one to have some private space. This house worked out well and then I was given the opportunity to rent a very old Victorian house that was 100 years old. I set this house up the same way vI had the previous house and tried to get people in recovery to move in, which some people did, but they were not into recovery. You never know what somebody wants to do until you let them live there for a while. I made a mistake about who I rented to. Most of the new tenants were not interested in a sober recovery program. When these new renters were not into the recovery program that I wanted. So instead of working all the problems out I let myself get into a negative thought pattern. I started using drugs and drinking again, which led to this house failing and myself ending up in the hospital again. Unfortunately, this experiment failed and took my successes at the other house down with it. IU let my pain and personal problems destroy another good effort to do something right. This was becoming a to familiar pattern of failure I was tired of, but not overcoming on my own. I need to say despite all these negative occurrences with attempting to control pain, I finally succeeded many years ago getting it all under control. I do not drink like I once did and my medications have worked well for me for seven years now.
11:02

Recovery in Oregon

I was the CEO of this non-profit created to build this house and had received donations from some business, the best was from a well know lumber company who sent around 40 people to the house and worked a long day accomplishing many things. I also appeared on the local news talking about what I was trying to do with this house for veterans. I keep mentioning bad times associated with drinking that I experienced during these times, when I was still trying to deal with the aftermath from my injuries. I had pleaded with many doctors to help me with pain medication, but to no avail. Weather at this time I could have found a way to take painkillers responsibly, I will never know. The drinking was all about attempting to live without pain. Until I met my current doctor, who helped me adjust to pain medication, and not abuse it so it could help me, I was lost with no other way to live without constant pain, and consequently the drinking prevailed. Because of my self-medicating with alcohol, I was not making any progress in my life. Every time I thought I was getting a little ahead the booze always overcame my best efforts. I could not deal with the nerve damage pain my body had been experienced. This housing venture did not work with me in charge and I was voted out of the non-profit. I decided to go back to California, wait for my check from the insurance company, and plan a fresh start. I had been in a program in Roseburg and decided to go there and try my housing program again.

Starting up in Oregon.

Here I am in Oregon. Partied with my friend the night I arrived, which was fun until his girlfriend said we were depriving her of sleep. So we gave it up and the next day I found a motel room to hang in. Motels rooms have never been good for me, and this one was no different from any in the past. I sat around the room and drank rum with no thought about what might happen next. After two days of this, I checked myself into another detox. This was becoming a habit for me. I spent a week in this place and then found a sober house to move into. I met a very nice guy who was recovering from a terrible accident involving the loss of his foot, which was surgically replaced, but causing him a very long rehab. I spent a couple of month eat this house, and feeling good about myself. I was involved in volunteer work for the VA and with the help of the supervisor decided to try and open a recovery house for vets in the area. This guy talked up a great trip involving non-profits, a system we could use to our advantage to get money from the federal government financing our housing trip to assist veterans. . We started construction on a house that had was damaged by fire (how appropriate!) and we started to fix it up. I moved into a part of the house that was not damaged, to keep an eye out to safe guard the place from theft or whatever. I became bored living by myself and started drinking again. Another decision on my part that was not good.

Made it to Oregon

My legal problems became more then I could deal with. I was facing jail time in the future and this prospect was not something I thought I could handle. I made a decision to leave Washington. I packed everything into my car, said my goodbyes and was off to Oregon, where I had friends that lived in and around Eugene. This was a risky drive, because if I was stopped and my license run, which was no longer valid, it would have been discovered that I was leaving the state when I was not supposed to be going anywhere. Luckily I was not stopped (of course I maintained the speed limit), but just before I crossed the border between Oregon and Washington I lost a hubcap going over the line. This was totally weird and of course, there was no way I was going back to get it. The way this occurred blew my mind, because here I was crossing over the boarder and having made my safe escape from Washington, but at the very time, I felt safe, having left the state, here pops up a situation to cause me to think about turning around to retrieve my hubcap, after all, it was a Mercedes hubcap! I easily convinced myself this would be a bad idea and just kept on trucking and loving that I had got out of Washington. I then was off to a friend’s house, who I had not seen for sometime and we partied all night and I felt very relieved.

Inquisitive

My escapades in Washington where not a highlight in my life, in fact what I became involved in was a very low point in my recovery. I was literally grabbing at straws and just hanging on. So I have to ask; why are there so many crazy people around? I have had it with ongoing paranoia associated with relationships. I do not want to whine very much about relationships that do not work out and leave you feeling empty when they end. All this philosophy comes from expensive lessons learned the hard way, because I trusted. How often has your trust been violated by another? I have tried to keep an open mind, but there have been times when my mind closed down, because trust was abused. Enough of my comments about trust for now and maybe longer.

An unusual relationship

When I finally ended up in court to settle these matters, I was informed I would have to spend some time in jail and pay a fine; of course, I would lose my license to drive. This was not going to work out for me very well and I decided with a suggestion from my lawyer that if I did not have any good reason to continue my stay in Washington, I might be a lot better off leaving. I managed to put off the jail time for six months, convincing that Judge that because of my disability and the jail without air-conditioning, it would be detrimental to my health if I was locked up during the summer months. He agreed, giving me sometime to figure out what I was going to do. I decided that leaving the state of Washington was my best option. I had some time to organize and as luck would have it, I met another crazy woman. I forget where we met, but suffice to say we did. She was oversexed and demanding. As it turned out, If she did not feel satisfied she would become violent. I found out later she had a restraining order against her from a previous boyfriend who she attacked. Of course, I did not know about any of this and was blissfully going along with this relationship. It was nice to have some love in my life, but that was until she became upset about something. I think it was because I fell asleep, and she thought she did not receive what she was entitled to. I apologized profusely, but she decided to throw a candle at me. A candle I had made for her. Was that fair? I ask you now, what is right, anyway? My thumb was broken by a gift I gave her? Didn't seem right at the time and still doesn't. While the candle was in flight, it was headed straight for my eye and I was lucky enough to deflect the candle, but it hit my thumb and broke it in three places. Of course, the police showed up and informed me of this woman's history. This was not the highlight of my evening. Then the police told me when she was with her previous boyfriend, after an disagreement she went after him with a knife. I guess I should consider myself fortunate that she only wielded a candle against me. This was actually a completely ridiculous situation, and let this be a lesson to you; do not drink with crazy women! Also, know something about whom you are hanging with. Have a sensible outlook, or if you find yourself in a similar position because you are horny, be careful. And good luck with that!

Still in Washington

The trip my aunt made was short. They attended a wedding in Idaho. My cousins and I grew up together during the summers, starting when we were young and not attending school during summer vacations. My cousins lived in Chicago, they would come out during the summer and stay with their mother in California, and I would join them wherever they were. This was always fun. We had not seen each other for years and reminisced about times past. The three of us had become heavy drinkers and my going to Washington created the perfect environment to catch up with each other's experiences since we were all discharged from the military in the late 1960's. My cousins were Marines and I was Navy. My Aunt and Uncle came home after a short trip, which lasted around ten days. I started looking for a place to rent, while they started planning for a two-month drive to the south and other parts of the United States. I rented his apartment in a building that had outlived its usefulness, and should have been torn down at least twenty years earlier, if not for the beach location, I am sure it would have been. I rented this place with my cousin's son, another alcoholic carrying on a fine tradition in our family. The arrangement did not work out very well. It lasted for about two month's, and then I was on my own again, after requesting my cousin to leave. I just hung at this place for a few months not making any progress concerning a sensible lifestyle. Things were decidedly not working to my advantage and I was extremely depressed. While I was in Washington, I had a hard time, which was brought on by myself during the two years I was there. I ended up with three DWI's in a six-month period.

In Washington

In Washington

I landed at my aunt's house, which started a party atmosphere, but one, which I did not know the extent of until latter in the evening. I was trying to maintain a sober life and was been told that my cousin was doing the same. After all the socializing and fun, we all had talking to one another it was time to close it all down. My aunt and uncle went to bed and then my cousin came out of his room with a bottle of good whiskey and wondered if I wanted a drink. Not expecting this I just went with the flow and said of course, I wanted a drink. My cousin and I had a lot of history, enjoying a good party anytime it presented itself. We had lived together in San Francisco for a number of years and having a good party time as a matter of course. I had a drink with him and we proceeded to get loaded again, like so many times before. This was a good time and enjoyed by I for sure. The next day we had to take my aunt and uncle to the airport so they could start their travels. I had agreed to take care of my aunt's place while they were away. For some reason she thought I was responsible and would take good care of her home while they were away. She had no reason to doubt my commitment to watch over her home. I was not in great shape or responsible as she hoped, but I could not tell her that. Things went OK for a while and everything was going good, then everything got out of control. My cousin and I continued to drink like fishes out of water, enjoying ourselves immensely.

Going to Oregon

The flight back to San Francisco was not pleasant. I was very sick from the exposure to the heat while I was there and it was going to take awhile to recover. I was back in the bay area and loving the cooler climate. I started planning a trio to Oregon and Washington to visit friends and family. I got my Mercedes coupe out of storage and my brother tuned it up, changing fluids and anything that needed to be repaired or upgraded. I loved this car and always treated it well. I spent three weeks visiting family and then set out on December 29th to Oregon. I have some friends who live in Eugene Oregon and that was my first stop. I made a side trip to Bend to visit with a dear friend for a few days and we had a good visit. Then, it was back to Eugene. This dialogue may be boring, but it is going somewhere. When I got back to Eugene, the town was experiencing a rare snowstorm, which in my opinion, not unusual considering the way my luck had been going. After parting extensively I* decided to leave and promptly back my car into a ditch. Fact is, I should not have been driving, but AAA tow got me out of the ditch and as soon as I got to highway 5 I needed to put chains on, slowing me down, which was a good thing. I was on my way to Oak Harbor Washington where my aunt lived and my cousins were there. One lived there and the other was visiting. Arriving in Oak Harbor the next day, starting a two year stay that was only memorable for it’s negative results that just kept coming one after another.

Leaving the Philippines

Now I was ready to leave the Philippines, but this could be tricky. Two of the girl’s brothers were Manila police. Every time I went out around town, they accompanied me to keep me safe. There were many kidnappings of Americans in the Philippines at this time and I did appreciate their company. I had heard a few stories about what had happened to some foreigners while they were here. The country is very religious and takes sexual relations very seriously, although this girl was no virgin, but I had said I was going to marry her, which was my intention for going there in the first place. Now I was changing my mind and the family had a lot riding on me marring this girl. When I let it be known I had to go back to the states, I started getting visits from mom and her sisters regarding my in tensions. I perceived this situation could get complicated if I appeared to be leaving and caring about the relationship. I had met one of her sisters and her husband who was really good people and understood how I was feeling. They told me they thought the family was putting to much pressure on me for their own personal gain and said they would help me get to the airport without the rest of the family knowing when I was leaving, at least not the exact day. My last get together with mom and sister I told them the heat was making me very sick (it was) and I had to go home, but I would do the paper work and send for her daughter as soon as I could get immigration to approve the visa. They left me alone and then the next day the couple who befriended me provided transportation to the airport. Once inside the terminal I was safe, because of the security situation that existed at the time, unless you had a ticket you could not gain access to the terminal. I made my escape. A trip to Oregon and Washington State was next on the agenda.

Fun in the Philippines

We enjoyed each other's company for about six weeks until I could not handle the constant get me pregnant and marry me conversations. I was getting it from all sides, Mother, aunts and all the women in the family. The ending to all this for me was when she said, "after we got back to the states that I had to initiate the paper work to bring her family to the United States." This was at least 30 people. Now I am an easy going, accommodating guy, but suddenly I saw myself with a full house of her relatives for the rest of time. I found out if you sponsor a family member, you have to guarantee them a place to live for a minimum of six months and this was not what I wanted for myself, and to top it off, with the heat getting to me and with the brown outs and the air conditioning shutting off I was getting sick. To explain, when you have lost most of your sweat glands you become susceptible to overheating. I had lost 65% of my sweat glands, because of 3rd degree burns and in those days, I had a horrible time in hot weather. Our bodies expel heat through our sweat glands and if you are without the means to dissipate your internal heat, you will have a major problem.

Fun and games in the Philippines

This trip to the Philippines was very amazing. I got there on a very hot day (which to my consternation was normal) and settled into a motel room with air conditioning, only to disco9ver Manila was experiencing blackouts every day. After being picked up at the airport by her relatives and herself, I was taken to a motel to stay. I thought we would take time to get to know each other and not have sex right away. Which was not what she wanted? As it turned out all this girl wanted, was to get pregnant, which I guess she thought would be her ticket the U.S. As it turned out she just got naked, she was a very pretty lady, and seduced me with little effort on her part. She very much wanted to be impregnated, but I resisted that for the time being. I stayed in this motel for a week and then rented this penthouse apartment in downtown Manila, which had a swimming pool outside my door on the roof. This was a nice setup and would have been a lot more enjoyable if I wasn’t constantly under pressure to make this girl pregnant. I always pulled out in time to avoid this happening and she got very mad about that. Her goals were very obvious and I didn’t want to be a part of that. Call it morals or not wanting to be obligated to raise a child at this time. Who knows? It gets sticky in the PI, more soon.

Another setback

I was doing well at this house, speaking before large gatherings at AA or NA meetings, telling my story of survival. I spent a good year at the house and this might have continued in a positive vein, except for what happened to me at my job at the VA workshop. I was lifting a heavy box of letters to be -0processed and felt a twinge in my neck that was painful. I injured a disk in my neck and after many tests including a MRI, it was determined, I would need surgery to correct the disk. I had the surgery and it was very successful. I was prescribed pain medication. Even though I needed this medicatio0pn to help in my recovery from the surgery, this was the worst treatment I could have got, not that there was anything better at the time. I was now taking narcotics again. This led to an old behavior I was very familiar with. When the pills I was using were no longer available to me, I looked for other avenues to pursue pain relief or perhaps I just wanted to stay high. Staying high was my goal after almost two years of being straight. Well I decided I could no longer stay in this house having been discovered getting high and asked to leave. I went to a friends house for awhile and then got an idea involving going to the Philippines. I had been corresponding with a young girl who was introduced to me by a line worker at the Vets workshop. I had made phones calls and wrote letters to this girl for over a year. I was on my way to the Philippines.

A new biginning

I moved into a new apartment, which was a room in a large house, but at the very least I had some privacy. The other residents were not into total sobriety, as I found out soon enough. One was a heroin addict and the other liked all forms of drugs and drinking, like me. To say we hit it off was an understatement. A continuous party was going on. This lasted about six weeks and I was a wreck, having spent what money I had accumulated during my time at the previous housing. I burned out and some friends got me out of there and into another program in Los Gatos. This was a private program in a nice facility. I had a private room for thirty days and a better way of life existed there. The counselors were all good people and the other people in recovery were all from a better station in life and easy to get along with. You need to understand I grew up in Danville, California, which was a wealthy community and the people from this area that I was at now at now were of similar pedigree and station in life. I got along with everyone in the program just fine. After completing this program, I was able to get a room in a recovery house in Los Gatos and a job at the VA workshop in San Jose. Things were looking up. I stayed in this house, which had a multitude of characters living there, for three months. We had a house meeting every night to voice our concerns or problems, which were about anything you had on your mind. This meeting was more then interesting almost every night, because two of the women living there were always in disagreement. Lots of cat fights. What ENTERTAINMENT! After a few months, me and two other men talked about getting our own place that would include a house policy of total sobriety. This worked out for over a year. To be continued.

Fun and explosions

After the four weeks, I went to a transitional housing program in San Jose. This program was set up to help people get a job during their transition back into society, so long as they remained sober. This experience was a lot of fun for me, despite my aversion to heat. I have always enjoyed cooking and despite how hot it was in the kitchen during the summer I still wanted to contribute and do something useful. I was preparing two meals a day for 50 plus people. I was allowed to be creative with the menus and cooked some dishes that I thought were very good. I did receive a number of compliments. I spent many a hot day in the kitchen; by I did enjoy this job, which provided me with some self-satisfaction. After five weeks, I was re-evaluated, and it was determined, that I could go to another house that the program had where everyone was more independent, more worthy and self sustaining, which was another beginning that had another bad ending. I was able in these days to have many opportunities to succeed, but Mister Self-destruct took over again, and always seem to win. This is the Fourth of July and I can hear my world around me blowing up. I I am in Alameda, California and there are many explosions going off around me. It is 10:30 in the evening and I am guessing that some of these explosions are not normal fireworks. I am enjoying the explosions in the sky and the colors that come after the Roman candles explode and distribute their colors throughout this sky tonight. The explosions cover the spectrum of all the colors, are unique with their Kaleidoscope of changing patterns, and provide a uniqueness that permeates the sky with brilliance. Amen

A rough night in the City

Here I am thinking about the fourth of July and remembering where I was in 1987. When the 4th of July came around I was in the VA hospital in Palo Alto. Is there or could there be a better place I could be at? When considering my circumstances, I started thinking about this. I thought what better situation I could be in, then being in the a place where many American veterans of conflicts the United States had been involved in came to for recovery from whatever happened to them. What could be a better place for this survivor to be? I am a patriot and proud of my military service in the Navy during the Vietnam conflict.
Getting back to the story at hand, I ended up in jail for a short period, because of a warrant I had forgotten about, but I was allowed to go to a shelter for the rest of the night. The next morning I made a desperate call to my parents asking for help. My father was not happy with me, but my mother said she would come and get me. I ended up spending the night in a sleazy motel in Oakland; this was because my father would not have anything to do with me. My mom picked me up in the morning, then she drove me to the Palo Alto VA, and I went into another VA recovery program. This one was for four weeks.

A short affair

I lasted in the program around three months, then I was tempted back to the city by a young women who claimed she needed me. She was 22 and very beautiful. I was influenced once again by her beauty, because she claimed a desire to be with me. I was a pretty easy mark in those days. A tremendous mistake by me was made again. We spent a nice week together and then she took a turn to another direction, which was not being with me. Men can be such suckers about women. When the rent ran out at the hotel room we rented, I went to see her at the room she rented at another hotel (there are many of these in North Beach) in North Beach. She told me I could stay a couple of days. I had arranged to get into a four-week program at the Palo Alto VA. She had this guy who had an infatuation with her. Another man fooled by this girl. She told him she did not want me in her room. So there I am sleeping and then I wake up listening to this guy telling my I should not be there and claiming she told him she did not want me there. This came as a big surprise to me and what was a bigger surprise was he was holding a knife to my throat. As he was telling me how she had told him I did not belong there and wanted me out. I shifted a little and managed to grab the knife from him and throw it away. I have always had great reflexes. Needless to say, this surprised him and now he felt threatened by me and started yelling about fearing for his life. The managers heard all the commotion and called the cops. A few minutes later a couple of San Francisco's finest came into the room.