Nobutts
03-18-2011, 07:56 AM
I think the best place to start is the year 2000.
I own my own business when I get a call. The woman is checking prices for a job and mine turned out to be the lowest. While making arrangements she stopped and asked what my name was. When I told her she asked me if I lived in a certain town to which I replied " I used to when I was a kid????" Her response I will never forget, she said; "My name is Susan Curtain and I was your first grade teacher!" After 27 years and approximately 1,000 students she remembered me. When I got to her house her husband put his arm around me and said " Ken M......., your name came up at quite a few cocktail hours."
Growing up things just never seemed right. I always thought "It will be better when...." When I go to school, when I can ride my bike to the store, when I get out of grade school, Jr High School, High School........when I meet a girl. I grew up in a nice home on a two acre wooded lot, my parents were both teachers. My only companions as a child were my two older brothers and seven girls three next door and four two houses down. I loved them all at different times. I can remember the names first and last of all the other school girls I was infatuated with from Kindergarten on. God, I loved them all with every one of my five senses. But I was fat, just a friend.
Things still weren't right. I lived in a world full of idiots. I didn't care for rules or authority. I felt ahead of my time and completely misunderstood. My arrogance had me thrown out of middle school and placed in a school for troubled kids. I grew up a lot there inside a year the teachers and administrators all said I didn't belong there and for tenth grade I was going back to public school.
I made a decision, I was going to loose weight and find someone. Things were going well I lost sixty pounds my grades were good and then it happened. It, happened. She turned around and kissed me. I'll never forget, it was 1 / 14/ 82 Wow, her name was Karen, Karen Joy and she became my everything, my world, my reason for living. She validated my existence. All of those insecurities vanished and nothing else mattered. We saw each other every day and we planed our dreams for the future. We'd go camping, to movies out to dinner or to feed the ducks. We saw all the concerts worth seeing and had a great group of friends. Life was good we were both out of High school. She attending state school for culinary arts, I had a full time job and a growing business on the side. We planned to get married she wanted four children two more than I. We were twenty one there was time to decide. Karen loved to laugh so to surprise her one day I bought tickets to George Carlin. It was going to be a special day, a day I will regret for the rest of my life.
End of a Love Story
They saw each other every evening after he returned from his job. They went camping and to soft music concerts. He bought her stuffed animals and roses often for no reason. She helped him shins pianos for a business he planed to start.
They were young lovers the kind of courtship that makes life seem eternal. And in the six years since they met in High School only one day passed when Kenneth didn't see Karen. He doesn't know that are occurrence will become the rule.
G.... Died Monday at Huntington Hospital after the couple was involved in a car crash Sunday Evening. And Kenneth 21 in serious condition has not been told the woman he hoped to marry is dead. Barbara Karen's mother said she doesn't know how Kenny will live without the only girl friend he has ever had. Karen used to say " I am his whole life." I know he'll suffer, never mind the pain he's in.........
Something snapped in my steering column causing van to cross the double yellow line where I hit a man who was driving while intoxicated. 5/1/88
I was unable to live with myself, with what I had done. I was depressed, suicidal, disabled and full of rage. I was enraged with the other driver, I was furious with myself and I blamed it all on God. I wanted to F**n off myself, my future was gone I destroyed her family, I took her father's baby, I couldn't walk, I couldn't work, all I could do was sit there and think about what I lost. I screwed it up again. I was plagued with these dreams. I'd either dream the accident all over again, OR I'd dream she was alive and wake up elated only to understand she was gone and once more I was crushed. That was the point where drinking ceased being a luxury and it became a necessity. I found when I was drinking I wouldn't have the dreams or wouldn't remember them. And the time came when I cursed the day she was born for all the pain she put me through.
Twenty two found me a daily drinker. Six months after Karen died so did my grandmother followed the next year by my mother. Dead at the age of 54 from alcoholism. I can't begin to describe how forgotten I felt, how lost and alone the utter despair and self loathing. I felt as if I had been gutted. It took everything I had to keep from throwing myself in front of a train. And like so many, when there was no one left to blame, I blamed God. Beer stopped working, vodka would fix that, two bottles and oblivion. At twenty four I knew beyond a doubt that I was an alcoholic. Convinced I would die like my mother and my uncle I plodded on.
You know mentally I pulled out of it. My friends were so many and always there. Butt if it weren't for the alcohol there isn't a doubt in my mind that I would have killed myself. I felt so empty. I felt those feelings of being alone. I was never enough for just myself so I sought after what I thought had made me so happy in the past. I met plenty of miss right now's, but not that Mrs. Right. I swung the secret Santa for Stephanie, a girl who worked in the office. Man she was beautiful. I bought us two tickets to the Luther Vandross Christmas show. That night was magical and not in any way i would have ever guessed. I could tell Stephanie and I were from two different planets. I dropped her off and stopped in local bar to finish the night. A person I know from where I live now ( twenty five miles away) said "It's the type of place where you'd want to wipe your feet as you were leaving." Little did I know that night I met my wife. 12/21/91
Wow what a smile, we hit it off. She made me feel important, and whole. Like I mattered. She had a heart the size of Texas. One day I intuitively knew if I didn't marry her I wouldn't meet anyone like her again. I asked her and she said yes, I realized then I needed to do something about my drinking. We moved in together and my drinking went underground. Still drinking every day, I did it before I going home continuing in " moderation " after I returned. She became pregnant and it was time for the new life.
We bought a house and moved thirty miles away from where I grew up and lived my whole life. That was it a home, a son, too much responsibility to drink like I did. I'd straighten out and we'd be livin Lavida Loco. But when we moved I came along. I couldn't stop drinking, I started hiding it all over my house just "in case". She knew it too. She'd say "Take my car." Never realizing a bottle was hidden in her trunk. I remember buying two bottles of the same thing driving home and just around the corner tossing one into the woods. I'd go walk my dog returning home twenty minutes later completely drunk. My wife would look at me, look in the cabinet at the full bottle, look at me again and wonder how I got that way. And every day with the two questions. " Have you been drinking? " ......... " NO!" the other I never knew........." Do you remember what you did last night? " I knew if she was talking to me it couldn't have been that bad. Sometimes she'd say " Nothing, you passed out and spilled your drink. " Other times she would just cry. And it killed me, I loved my wife so very much, I just didn't do it very well. She'd say " Can we not drink this week? " Being half of we was me, it was highly unlikely. I could only last one or two days tops and I'd be falling apart. Butt I never ever, ever drank in the morning. Until I did. And then I realized I just had to. I remember thinking one night if this house burns down I doubt she'd pull me out? And if I lived until my son was eighteen I did my job. It went on that way for two more years.
Until one day, it was a Sunday, July 8, 2001 I get a call from a friend of mine Bob. Big Bob he's called. 6 foot 8 and he looks just like Paul Bunion and, he drinks just like me! He asked me what I was doing..... "Nothing he said " Good, I'm coming over."
He picked me up and we drove about a mile to a shopping center. That's when I knew something was up, there wasn't any alcohol in the whole mini mall. He put it in park and I thought I was gonna die. He started to tell me about my drinking. He said " Your wife's calling my fiancée telling her about the yelling and fighting. And your partner's calling me, telling me that you're taking calls and forgetting about appointments you're making. That you reek of booze every morning....." I said " HOLD ON......that SOB drinks just like I do!!" and he looked at me and he said " I'm not talking about him......I'm talking about YOU!!" And as he said that he stuck his finger right in may face ( 6 foot 8 people have really long fingers ) then he said something I will never forget, he said " I haven't had a drink in about four months, but I think I'm going to..............Would you go to AA with me?"
I don't know why other than I didn't think I had any other choice, I said yes. I went home and finished the quart of Vodka. The suffering I went through the next three days was almost unbearable without going into details I wouldn't wish the D.T.'s on my worst enemy. I often say I didn't go to AA to stop drinking, I went to AA to get my wife off of my back. I stopped there on my way to the cemetery and I've been here ever since.
Since that time so many unbelievable events have taken place in my life. I'm a positive influence in my community and every day God has provided me with an opportunity to be of help to someone else. Today I don't think about drinking and I don't think about not drinking. To me it is not an issue. My son has so many friends who don't have fathers that are active in their lives. It brings me tremendous pleasure taking them fishing, camping, dirt bike riding to races or ball games. I am a part of life and play a part in the lives of others.
......................Kenny
I own my own business when I get a call. The woman is checking prices for a job and mine turned out to be the lowest. While making arrangements she stopped and asked what my name was. When I told her she asked me if I lived in a certain town to which I replied " I used to when I was a kid????" Her response I will never forget, she said; "My name is Susan Curtain and I was your first grade teacher!" After 27 years and approximately 1,000 students she remembered me. When I got to her house her husband put his arm around me and said " Ken M......., your name came up at quite a few cocktail hours."
Growing up things just never seemed right. I always thought "It will be better when...." When I go to school, when I can ride my bike to the store, when I get out of grade school, Jr High School, High School........when I meet a girl. I grew up in a nice home on a two acre wooded lot, my parents were both teachers. My only companions as a child were my two older brothers and seven girls three next door and four two houses down. I loved them all at different times. I can remember the names first and last of all the other school girls I was infatuated with from Kindergarten on. God, I loved them all with every one of my five senses. But I was fat, just a friend.
Things still weren't right. I lived in a world full of idiots. I didn't care for rules or authority. I felt ahead of my time and completely misunderstood. My arrogance had me thrown out of middle school and placed in a school for troubled kids. I grew up a lot there inside a year the teachers and administrators all said I didn't belong there and for tenth grade I was going back to public school.
I made a decision, I was going to loose weight and find someone. Things were going well I lost sixty pounds my grades were good and then it happened. It, happened. She turned around and kissed me. I'll never forget, it was 1 / 14/ 82 Wow, her name was Karen, Karen Joy and she became my everything, my world, my reason for living. She validated my existence. All of those insecurities vanished and nothing else mattered. We saw each other every day and we planed our dreams for the future. We'd go camping, to movies out to dinner or to feed the ducks. We saw all the concerts worth seeing and had a great group of friends. Life was good we were both out of High school. She attending state school for culinary arts, I had a full time job and a growing business on the side. We planned to get married she wanted four children two more than I. We were twenty one there was time to decide. Karen loved to laugh so to surprise her one day I bought tickets to George Carlin. It was going to be a special day, a day I will regret for the rest of my life.
End of a Love Story
They saw each other every evening after he returned from his job. They went camping and to soft music concerts. He bought her stuffed animals and roses often for no reason. She helped him shins pianos for a business he planed to start.
They were young lovers the kind of courtship that makes life seem eternal. And in the six years since they met in High School only one day passed when Kenneth didn't see Karen. He doesn't know that are occurrence will become the rule.
G.... Died Monday at Huntington Hospital after the couple was involved in a car crash Sunday Evening. And Kenneth 21 in serious condition has not been told the woman he hoped to marry is dead. Barbara Karen's mother said she doesn't know how Kenny will live without the only girl friend he has ever had. Karen used to say " I am his whole life." I know he'll suffer, never mind the pain he's in.........
Something snapped in my steering column causing van to cross the double yellow line where I hit a man who was driving while intoxicated. 5/1/88
I was unable to live with myself, with what I had done. I was depressed, suicidal, disabled and full of rage. I was enraged with the other driver, I was furious with myself and I blamed it all on God. I wanted to F**n off myself, my future was gone I destroyed her family, I took her father's baby, I couldn't walk, I couldn't work, all I could do was sit there and think about what I lost. I screwed it up again. I was plagued with these dreams. I'd either dream the accident all over again, OR I'd dream she was alive and wake up elated only to understand she was gone and once more I was crushed. That was the point where drinking ceased being a luxury and it became a necessity. I found when I was drinking I wouldn't have the dreams or wouldn't remember them. And the time came when I cursed the day she was born for all the pain she put me through.
Twenty two found me a daily drinker. Six months after Karen died so did my grandmother followed the next year by my mother. Dead at the age of 54 from alcoholism. I can't begin to describe how forgotten I felt, how lost and alone the utter despair and self loathing. I felt as if I had been gutted. It took everything I had to keep from throwing myself in front of a train. And like so many, when there was no one left to blame, I blamed God. Beer stopped working, vodka would fix that, two bottles and oblivion. At twenty four I knew beyond a doubt that I was an alcoholic. Convinced I would die like my mother and my uncle I plodded on.
You know mentally I pulled out of it. My friends were so many and always there. Butt if it weren't for the alcohol there isn't a doubt in my mind that I would have killed myself. I felt so empty. I felt those feelings of being alone. I was never enough for just myself so I sought after what I thought had made me so happy in the past. I met plenty of miss right now's, but not that Mrs. Right. I swung the secret Santa for Stephanie, a girl who worked in the office. Man she was beautiful. I bought us two tickets to the Luther Vandross Christmas show. That night was magical and not in any way i would have ever guessed. I could tell Stephanie and I were from two different planets. I dropped her off and stopped in local bar to finish the night. A person I know from where I live now ( twenty five miles away) said "It's the type of place where you'd want to wipe your feet as you were leaving." Little did I know that night I met my wife. 12/21/91
Wow what a smile, we hit it off. She made me feel important, and whole. Like I mattered. She had a heart the size of Texas. One day I intuitively knew if I didn't marry her I wouldn't meet anyone like her again. I asked her and she said yes, I realized then I needed to do something about my drinking. We moved in together and my drinking went underground. Still drinking every day, I did it before I going home continuing in " moderation " after I returned. She became pregnant and it was time for the new life.
We bought a house and moved thirty miles away from where I grew up and lived my whole life. That was it a home, a son, too much responsibility to drink like I did. I'd straighten out and we'd be livin Lavida Loco. But when we moved I came along. I couldn't stop drinking, I started hiding it all over my house just "in case". She knew it too. She'd say "Take my car." Never realizing a bottle was hidden in her trunk. I remember buying two bottles of the same thing driving home and just around the corner tossing one into the woods. I'd go walk my dog returning home twenty minutes later completely drunk. My wife would look at me, look in the cabinet at the full bottle, look at me again and wonder how I got that way. And every day with the two questions. " Have you been drinking? " ......... " NO!" the other I never knew........." Do you remember what you did last night? " I knew if she was talking to me it couldn't have been that bad. Sometimes she'd say " Nothing, you passed out and spilled your drink. " Other times she would just cry. And it killed me, I loved my wife so very much, I just didn't do it very well. She'd say " Can we not drink this week? " Being half of we was me, it was highly unlikely. I could only last one or two days tops and I'd be falling apart. Butt I never ever, ever drank in the morning. Until I did. And then I realized I just had to. I remember thinking one night if this house burns down I doubt she'd pull me out? And if I lived until my son was eighteen I did my job. It went on that way for two more years.
Until one day, it was a Sunday, July 8, 2001 I get a call from a friend of mine Bob. Big Bob he's called. 6 foot 8 and he looks just like Paul Bunion and, he drinks just like me! He asked me what I was doing..... "Nothing he said " Good, I'm coming over."
He picked me up and we drove about a mile to a shopping center. That's when I knew something was up, there wasn't any alcohol in the whole mini mall. He put it in park and I thought I was gonna die. He started to tell me about my drinking. He said " Your wife's calling my fiancée telling her about the yelling and fighting. And your partner's calling me, telling me that you're taking calls and forgetting about appointments you're making. That you reek of booze every morning....." I said " HOLD ON......that SOB drinks just like I do!!" and he looked at me and he said " I'm not talking about him......I'm talking about YOU!!" And as he said that he stuck his finger right in may face ( 6 foot 8 people have really long fingers ) then he said something I will never forget, he said " I haven't had a drink in about four months, but I think I'm going to..............Would you go to AA with me?"
I don't know why other than I didn't think I had any other choice, I said yes. I went home and finished the quart of Vodka. The suffering I went through the next three days was almost unbearable without going into details I wouldn't wish the D.T.'s on my worst enemy. I often say I didn't go to AA to stop drinking, I went to AA to get my wife off of my back. I stopped there on my way to the cemetery and I've been here ever since.
Since that time so many unbelievable events have taken place in my life. I'm a positive influence in my community and every day God has provided me with an opportunity to be of help to someone else. Today I don't think about drinking and I don't think about not drinking. To me it is not an issue. My son has so many friends who don't have fathers that are active in their lives. It brings me tremendous pleasure taking them fishing, camping, dirt bike riding to races or ball games. I am a part of life and play a part in the lives of others.
......................Kenny