Beating the Devil

It was 18 years ago today, May 31, 1994, that I took my last drink of alcohol. That's 6,575 days with 5 leap years days thrown in. Do I ever desire a drink? Sure I do. But something happened on that day that had never before happened to me. I made the decision to either stop drinking entirely or do myself in. I got a six pack of Budweiser, drove down to the water at Lake Manatee by the fish camp, looked out and saw a figure walking across the water toward me. Was it Jesus, or a ghost, or just a figment of my imagination? I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know that the thing I was seeing was real. I bowed my head, closed my eyes and prayed that I could stop my addiction to alcohol at that very moment. I felt a calm and a peace about me. I looked up again and the figure was gone. I had not yet opened any of the six pack and all of a sudden I had no desire to open and drink the beer anymore. I drove home and put the six pack in my refigerator. I did not make any pronouncements or promises to my family that I had, or would, stop drinking. I surely had made such promises before and had fallen short of my goal at every turn. The next few weeks were rough for me physically. I made myself go out and work in the hot sun. I had cravings and withdrawals. I even built a little trailer to haul around produce in. I guess it was a kind of therapy for me and kept me busy. I started exercising, walking and running, exercising on my famous Nordic Trac cross country skiing machine!! I dropped 60 pounds in a few months, started competing in track club races again and even completed a marathon in late 1995 which qualified me for Boston again. Oh, what about the six pack of Bud in my refrigerator? I poured it out one can at a time over a period of several months just to test my resolve. I went to NY that summer and played golf with my brothers. We went to a bar in Binghamton. I did not drink. Did not even have a desire to drink. Do I consider myself an alcoholic? Yes!!! Will I be an alcoholic until the day that I die? Yes!! But I'm a special kind of alcoholic. A non- practicing alcoholic!!