One Pilots Story

Wounded Wings

From General Aviation to the left seat of a 747.  This recovering pilot has seen it all.

      I grew up in a Mom and Pop FBO environment in the 60’s and 70’s  watching ,listening, learning and doing anything having to do with general aviation in the upper Midwest. I also learned from Dad that drinking and flying do not mix unless the airplanes are put away and we were done for the day. I soloed a few days after my 16th birthday in 1972 and by that time I was well versed in alcohol consumption, pot smoking and any other mood altering drug that came my way, but never mixing it with airplanes. Those days I would read and study everything I could about aviation to take all the written tests to earn the ratings and licenses.  The licenses and ratings came and so did the end of high school.  College held little interest but partying did, so I enrolled in a Community College offering an aviation maintenance program. After having years of OJT at the FBO and rebuilding my own J-3 the school held no challenges and left plenty of time to party, flight instruct, wrench, fly some charter and chase girls. I seemed to excel at them all.

      By 1980 I left the family FBO and went to work for a commuter airline flying a Navaho Chieftain building valuable multi and instrument time. Soon came the Embraer “Bandits” and turbine time. Long hours, low level IFR and hand flying had my instrument skills honed. My drinking skills were also honed and pushing 8 hrs “bottle to throttle” was a regular occurrence.  I soon tired of the “pilot pushing” and felt I had no chance at a major carrier since I did not have a 4 yr degree, so I took a corporate job for a small company as the chief and only pilot/mechanic flying maybe 200 hrs a year.

      I made a geographic change accepting a co-pilot/mechanic job flying a Falcon 10 for a large company 2 hrs drive away. Within 4 months the captain seat was mine and I was now a real jet jock! Drugs were pretty much a thing of the past but the drinking continued. A few years earlier I felt privileged to be accepted as a member of “Ye Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen”, an old organization with no dues or fees, a social gathering of male pilots, most of these guys drink like gentlemen and I was sure I could too. 

      1988 found me with a live in girlfriend and we had a rocky relationship. She took my inventory and accused me of being an alcoholic! I had a good job, went to work regularly, rarely was I sick, me an alcoholic? No way! She soon became pregnant and I wanted to do “the right thing” and get married. She said only if I attended an outpatient program.  I explained the predicament that would put me in considering my medical. I finally agreed and did it on the sly paying cash and I told my employer it was pre-marriage counseling. I soon learned to drink on the road and never made it more than a couple weeks during treatment without alcohol. I manipulated the new wife into thinking I was in control again and could take it or leave it! Our baby daughter was born December 3rd 1988.  I was responsible now and I was going to show her.

      By that next year all my old flying buddies said many of the majors were hiring. TWA and United were sent resumes’ and applications came. Women and minorities were filling seniority lists at a rapid pace and my friends told me to use my minority status of being half Asian in my favor. My false pride or lack of pride being Asian prevented me from putting it on the application. They could hire me on my credentials or screw them! I went through both airline’s interview process and was hired by TWA.  I was off to STL for indoc and JFK as a newly minted 747 flight engineer. I was now a real airline pilot and could drink with the best of them. I learned to jumpseat in a “wetsuit” as it was called when you had first class and a sport coat to cover the uniform and drink like a gentleman. The crews clued me in to where the “office” was on layovers to enjoy cheap drinks, especially for a B scaler.

       My wife was pregnant again and our son was born at 7:47pm as I was jumpseating on the first leg in a 747 during a blizzard in the midwest on December 28,1990. I called crew sked from STL and they let me know I had a healthy baby boy!

      January 21st 1991, at home on my birthday and with the Gulf War in full swing, I learned TWA furloughed another 100 plus pilots and I was 60 from the bottom. The company notified me 4 days later claiming an act of war allowed them to furlough without notice. Pour, pour me another one. I went to Evergreen on a 6 month contract supporting the war, then some local corporate flying and was finally recalled and soon furloughed again! This time a furlough bypass fit the bill as I had another corporate job at home and then the opportunity to start a flight department for a computer company. I resigned my TWA seniority.

      Drinking continued and some bad blood with the CEO’s wife after almost 4 years and my arrogant attitude found me looking again for a job. My wife filed for divorce, pour me another. Ryan was my next employer and while training at NATCO on the 727, I met up with some Atlas guys in the cafeteria. I was soon back to NATCO, training on the 747 for Atlas as a new FO. Upgrades were rapid and about a year later came the captain’s seat. There was not a hat big enough to fit my head! I had learned now to drink all over the globe.

      I met my 2nd wife in the local bar by the airport and her place of employment. Something was real special about this one and I was truly in love this time. She was pretty, smart, responsible. She was also divorced with no kids except previous foster children and my kids loved her. We were married Valentines day 1996. She spent more quality time with my kids while I drank mostly at home since I felt I deserved to be able to do what I wanted since I needed to sync myself up from globetrotting.  I had every excuse. When we did go out I would convince her we needed to stop at the local bar for a couple. When she was ready to go after a drink or two I was not, many times she would leave and I would stay until closing and either drive or walk the few blocks home. She was devoted to my children and her work and we began to drift apart emotionally.

      New Years Y2K found me in Santiago, Chile and another good reason to party, I remember very little about it except that something must have been wrong with my FO when he told me he didn’t drink.

      One July night on a layover I was drinking heavily as usual and decided to take the inventory of one of our schedulers. I laid into this unsuspecting soul in a drunken stupor. Next day was an all expense paid trip to ANC for a carpet dance in front of the Chief Pilot and a recorded playback of my antics. ALPA was just negotiating our first contract but there was no LOA for a HIMS program yet and I was in total denial in any case, even as my union rep Tom C. asked me if I wanted some help (I didn’t know at the time but Tom was in the program).  The decision was made, resignation or termination.  I chose resignation.  I was a whale captain feeling lower than whale sh*t on the ocean bottom. I lied to my wife and told her I quit to spend more time at home. I then found a job flying in the Fractional industry.

      2005 was my first and God willing last DUI arrest.  Long story short, I bonded out, made my flight the next day and hired a lawyer. I notified the FAA knowing I had 60 days and they would see my driver’s license revoked. I was found not guilty by a jury and the help of a good lawyer. I was running the show again!

      February 2006 found me at home while I declined to go with my wife to some event she wanted to attend. A couple drinking buddies were at the house and we finished a half gallon of Jack Daniels and I started drinking the beer I had left while the other two were passed out. I called my wife wondering where she was, she knew I was drunk and hung up on me. I called several times more with no answer working myself up into a rage. She came home finally and from what I vaguely remember, I was screaming, swearing and finally pushing her around. I thought she was having some kind of affair. My one buddy woke up to the commotion; he tried to get me to stop. I threatened my wife that I would shoot myself if she didn’t tell me the truth and got the gun out and shot it through the ceiling! My senses started to come back and I knew this was dangerous and put the gun away. My wife was terrified and crying, she said she felt like calling 911, I told her I would call them! I did!  I was cuffed, hauled off and charged with domestic abuse and careless and reckless with a firearm (they found a shell casing).

       Fear, bewilderment, frustration and despair were my only friends. Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization was a perfect summation of my feelings. I would lay in bed sleepless, worrying about what was to come. February 14th Valentines Day, our 10th anniversary and the depression deepened, my head was racing, how could I have done such a thing to my wonderful wife, how stupid could I be? February 18th found me out to the bar with my brother and his friends and the fun of drinking was not there anymore. I lied awake that night crying like a baby thinking of my predicament and what would come, losing my wife, the house, my job, my kids, and my career. The four hideous horsemen appeared again and all I could do was pray, “God, please help me!” I surrendered. Sleep finally came.

      The next day my desire to drink left me. I wrote an email and I copied my relatives including my in-laws and ex wife admitting that “I’m an alcoholic” asking not for pity but finally taking responsibility for my actions. I was going to find help. I knew my wife would also see the email. I got myself into this mess but I knew I needed help to get out. I called a retired pilot friend in the program and told him my story and asked if he would take me to an AA meeting when I got home and he quickly said yes and you don’t have to do this alone.

      The miracles were now starting to come.  I told my wife I was really going to change for me regardless of what would happen with us. As soon as I got home my friend gave me a Big Book and took me to my first meeting.  I devoured that book. I went to work and found online meetings in my hotel room and would start to find face to face meetings on the road and read everything I could find about this disease. I attended meetings daily, many times more than one while home. My friend would pick me up since I still did not have a driver’s license from the DUI charge. He became my temporary sponsor. I started working the steps. Another temporary sponsor knew my story and told me you need to read page 60 through 64 of the BB twice a day for 30 days. He knew I was ready for step 3. I went to a psychologist at the suggestion of my lawyer for “anger management issues”. I stepped in his office and he said “it says here you have some anger issues” and I told him that I’m an alcoholic. I told him my story. He told me he was also an alcoholic in recovery!

      I was in SEA stuck for 4 days with a broken airplane and wrote my 4th step in the hotel room between online meetings and a local meeting I found. When I got home I was searching for someone to do the 5th with and my sponsor said you’ll find the right person to come along just don’t wait too long and it dawned on me my recovering psychologist would be perfect!

      I continued to become teachable and was going to any lengths to stay on the beam. Meetings, anywhere I could, every bit of conference literature, books, and online resources. Soon, 6 months went by then 9 and that first 1 year chip. The GSR position was open at my home group and I accepted. I was reminded of where I was before during District meetings when I would see the batterer’s education class attendees walk by. I would not regret the past nor close the door on it and understood what a grateful alcoholic was because I am one.

      My wife said that it’s not all about me anymore, just mostly about me but I’m getting better! She’s a member of Al-Anon now. I call her my Alanoid and she’ll say no I’m just annoyed!

      When I start getting too complacent in my recovery I remind myself of Father Ed Dowlings words, “very few of us have come to know how much we need to know in order to know how little we know”.  Right or wrong I count Feb 18th the day I surrendered and asked God for help as my birthday. He took away the obsession and He gets the credit.

      So many miracles have come true for me and each day is a miracle. And about that FO who didn’t drink in Santiago? We found each other on the net nest and he gave me the number of that scheduler to make a much needed amends to.  Rigorous honesty and vigorous action has taught me how to work the program. I learned the meaning of love and tolerance is our code. I have to give this away to keep it and I know it.

       Today I continue to work the steps and God willing, always will, especially 3,10,11,12 and when those shortcomings of mine crop up I know 7 works if I ask Him. Service work and meetings are my release from boredom and worry. I even have a sponsee that has taught me so much about this disease. My sponsor tells me we are like pickles, once we were cucumbers and then we got pickled and we can never be cucumbers again. I am so grateful to find another group of pilots with no dues or a fee, that group is Birds of a Feather. Feb 18th 2009 will be 3 years since I asked God for help and if He’s willing and I continue to be teachable we will celebrate with some newfound friends.

 

My name is JJ.

    I’m an alcoholic and always will be

Looking Good On The Outside

By Tom D.

A Vietnam-era Marine aviator turned international airline pilot tells his story.

     Growing up in a house full of adults wasn't really so bad.  My Dad had passed away when I was young and my mother and I moved back into her family home where three aunts, an uncle and a grandfather were accommodating enough to share their cramped quarters with us.  My bachelor uncle was generally irritable and grouchy except on Saturday nights when he would meet with his friends to drink a magical potion which seemed to transform him.  He instantly became a fun-loving, carefree man who loved everyone and everything.  I felt privileged just to sit and watch the revelry.  It was then that I decided to try that potion as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
      Curious, twelve years old and in possession of a pint of whiskey borrowed from my aunt's liquor cabinet, I activated the devil which would come back to haunt me.  With two friends we gagged down the contents, and I discovered a freedom and feeling of euphoria heretofore unimagined.  My uncles' magical elixir was now mine.  I was suddenly freed from the constraints of society and could do or say anything that pleased me.  My inhibitions were lifted and I was a feather in the wind.  I spent the rest of my drinking career trying to recapture the feelings of that first evening.

      A strong mother and the loving support of my aunts was the impetus for me to set some subconscious goals for myself.  I did not want to spend the rest of my life in the tenements of the inner city, and I knew that an education was the only way out. 
      Occasional teenage drinking seemed to enhance my social life and was only marginally interfering with it.  I did lose my spot on the varsity football team for missing a crucial Saturday practice because I was deathly ill from the previous night's drinking.  This was a devastating loss, as I was skinny as a rail and had to work twice as hard as the other boys to earn my number.  I remember promising myself that I would never drink straight vodka again.
      The college years were actually an extension of high school.  I lived at home and worked after school to help with my tuition.  My drinking was confined to weekends with Friday being boys night out, drinking beer at taverns that tended to ignore the age requirement.  On Saturday night I would go to dances or date where my emphasis was definitely on the opposite sex and the drinking was incidental.
      It was during this time that I joined the Marines on the promise of flight school after graduation if I could get through the rigors of officer training.  The thought of the recruiting poster depicting a sleek fighter jet streaking across a deep blue sky became the new goal in my life.  Occasional booze-related lapses of common sense followed by mayhem went undetected by the authorities (the Grace of God, as I now understand).
      Following college graduation I was commissioned an Officer and a Gentleman and was off to flight school and my little gray jet.  Three weeks later I was standing at attention in front of my commanding officer trying to explain why I was arrested for speeding in reverse while under the influence of alcohol.  I had no logical explanation and was confined to the base for a month.  The State of Florida then saw fit to revoke my driving privileges for two years.  This made it a bit sticky--long hikes to class and the flight line.  One day while hiking in the rain a sailor stopped and offered me a welcome but uncomfortable ride asking why I was on foot.  Telling him that my car was in for repairs, I was, of course, too embarrassed to tell the truth.

     I married my college sweetheart while in advance jet training and upon arrival at the base in Texas I informed her that Happy Hour was on Friday night and not to plan on seeing me until late.  The very next Friday she was in tears  as I arrived home in sorry condition with no idea of where our car might be.  She was ready to go back home but I controlled the money so she was essentially a hostage.  The following day I went to the local priest and asked to take "the pledge" to quit booze for the rest of my life.  He told me of his experience with alcohol, the devastation drinking could cause, and that the pledge did not work.  He probably advised me to try A.A. but that part I didn't hear.
      During my years of military service I continued to drink only on weekends until my squadron was ordered to the Far East where I was to be away from my family for fifteen months.  This is the period where there was a definite change in my drinking pattern and where, I believe, I crossed over that invisible line into alcoholism.  The officers mess and bar where I would find myself every afternoon after work was a mere two hundred feet from my quarters.
      My beer drinking could never seem to be abandoned for anything as trivial as dinner and I would stay glued to my bar stool until closing.  Drinking in the military back then was not only condoned but was also a sign of manhood.  I, however, felt anything but manly those mornings, dragging myself down to the Ready Room, unable to face breakfast.  Knowing I had to eat something I found that a strawberry milkshake and a bowl of tomato soup would stay down at lunch.  After I was steady, I would promise myself to take it easy that night and make sure to eat a wholesome dinner.  It never happened!  I renewed the cycle every afternoon.

     A very confusing incident took place at 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean.  I had no idea where I was going and no memory of briefing or taking off.  Looking out I saw my wingman flying just off my right wing in a good formation position so at least I wasn't alone.  The scribbling on the flight plan attached to my kneeboard indicated that we were on our way to an air base located on the island of Okinawa and that I had indeed obtained the proper paper work and had checked the weather.  The rest of the flight was routine and I never mentioned my memory lapse to anyone.  Flying a single seat fighter in a blackout gave me real concern for the moment but not any thought that I might be a person who shouldn't drink alcohol.
      Shortly after that incident on a Saturday morning I experienced the hallucination of a miniature devil playing a piano in the corner of my room.  I found it delightful and told my best friend who said it was from the drinking, so we then went to the bar to laugh about it.  He told me it was an occupational hazard of being a heavy drinker.

     It scared me that I couldn't seem to break the daily drinking pattern.  Formulating a desperate plan, I presented it to the Squadron Flight Surgeon.  Innovative and seemingly logical, I requested he remove my healthy appendix on the grounds that it was a useless organ and could cause trouble some day.  The truth was, I felt if I could just get some convalescent time in the hospital away from booze, I could stop the drinking--at least for a while.  His refusal ended my foolish plan and I felt hopelessly locked in my dilemma with another unanswered prayer to my growing list.
      It was answered shortly thereafter in a most unusual way.  My squadron was suddenly ordered to a small expeditionary base in Vietnam.  There was no alcohol available unless one had the foresight to bring it with him, and I didn't.  I dried out in the tropic heat at the ripe old age of twenty five and began to feel healthy again.  I missed my wife terribly but I felt good and flew my daily combat missions enthusiastically.  Although the adrenaline was pumping, sleep at night was sound and I awoke rested and eager to mark off each day on the calendar.  There was no doubt in my mind that my alcohol free state accounted for my feeling so well  yet I totally disregarded the anguish of my previous binge and dived back into drinking as soon as the supply ship arrived.   The variety was limited and I gladly drank whatever ill-tasting combination was available.
      One very dark evening an alert went off and I found myself sitting in the Operations tent being briefed to fly a night support mission with a full load of rockets under a flare drop.  Even in the best of conditions this is a difficult mission because of the blinding effect as the rockets are fired and the resulting period of vision recovery between successive attacks.  I was so drunk I had trouble walking and again I prayed the prayer of desperation.  This time it was to help the Marines in battle so that I would not kill myself or them while trying to help.  My prayers were answered.   I was truly convinced that the incessant drinking and outrageous behavior would end as soon as I was home and reunited with my family.  I had passed over into alcoholism and didn't know that I was the proverbial cucumber turned into a pickle and that I could never change back.

     When my military obligation was completed I returned home to Boston and started in a ground level management position with a large company.  Working more that twelve hours a day there was very little time for drinking.  After three months on the job my wife pointed out that I was driven but humorless and that I should return to the sky, for that was, obviously, where I was happiest.  I knew she was right so I applied to and was hired by a major international airline.
      The first two years of my new career were spent in Hong Kong flying around the Orient and living in a spacious apartment offering panoramic views of the South China Sea.  A live-in maid took care of the cooking, cleaning and baby sitting.  It was party time and I took such full advantage of it that I almost killed myself in car wrecks and other misadventures involving alcohol.  It seemed that the more time off I had, the worse my drinking became.  My free time between flights was almost a social liability because I seemed to be causing embarrassment for myself and my wife now on a regular basis.  We were out of the mainstream, the war in Vietnam was in full swing and that offered me the excuse I needed to disregard all the usual social boundaries.
      After drinking far too much at a Sunday morning Bloody Mary party, my wife and I went home to dress for our vacation trip to Bangkok that evening.  I dressed in pieces of two different suits and argued vehemently to the contrary.  On the airplane, with more drinks I became loud and aggressive and was refused further drinks.  Just before landing I fell asleep and had to be shaken awake by the crew so they could get me off.  Knowing I worked for the airline the crew reported me and on our return to Hong Kong.   I was called into my boss's office and asked if I thought I was an alcoholic.  My answer was as honest as it could be when I told him I was only twenty six and couldn't possibly be.  I was able to make amends to this man some years later for the trouble I had caused him.

     Two years after it opened, the Hong Kong base was closed and I was transferred to New York where I was to fly the Atlantic to Europe, Africa and South America for the rest of my career.  I was now flying the big jets and became a control drinker.  Abstaining the night before a flight or at least being moderate and observing the 12 hour alcohol rule became an obsession.  I was aware of the possibility of eventually misjudging an evening's drinking and showing up in uniform still under the influence.  Termination would be automatic and the union would not defend in this situation.  It was an awesome burden to put on a budding alcoholic and I gave serious thought to a career change.  A nine-to-five job where I could stop for drinks on the way home each evening was very appealing.  At this time my schedule  was completely controlled by my addiction.  When requesting my flight schedule for the following month, my consideration was the number of days off between trips.  I needed at least one to unwind, one to drink and one to get well for the next trip.  This severely limited me in my choices and resulted in my unnecessarily being away over major holidays and was another unrecognized indication that alcohol was controlling my life.
      Around this time we bought our first home and now had three children.  I was the bread winner but not a major contributor in the family.  When home I seemed to be either drinking, thinking about drinking or recovering from drinking.  There were times after a bout of booze that I would be temperate and, being on good behavior, was available for the family and enjoyed them.  These times, however, only reinforced my conviction that alcohol was not a major problem in my life.
      I had no idea where the money was going.  Bills were being paid late and I was always writing embarrassing letters to faceless creditors.  The lawn was either knee high or half cut and abandoned.  One light by the front door was forever burned out and the fifty dollar wreck I was driving had plywood on the rear floor so the children wouldn't fall through into the street.  I was totally unpredictable.  One minute I would disregard a major problem, the next minute would find me in a rage over something trivial.  I can still see the puzzlement in the eyes of my wife and children and remember my own insensitivity.  I truly believed it was the alcohol that was helping me cope with all the living problems and was the only true friend I had left.

     Another Christmas away from home but with the compensation of being off until the middle of January.  The drinking began on New Years Eve and I would be drunk every night and sick every morning for the next seven days.  They are a blank until day seven when I was awakened by my wife and eight year old son standing over me.  Shaking me awake, she said, "Your son wants to know why you sleep on the couch and not in bed anymore?  Why do you sleep with your clothes on?  Why do you smell so bad?"   My groggy response to these intrusive questions was essentially that it was none of his business.  I put the roof over your head and the food on the table and I will do as I please in this house.  In my heart I knew better.  My shame was complete with the realization that one of my children had seen me for what I was.  I was disgusted with myself and I uttered the unthinkable:  "I'm an alcoholic".  This had been something I would never entertain as it implied to me that it was a serious illness that required a serious treatment.  That minor family incident crushed my denial and provided me the willingness to seek help.

     I took to the road, found an isolated phone booth and called an organization I had joked about as a teenager.  The voice on the other end answered, "Alcoholics Anonymous. May I help you?"  Through my muffled sobs and tears I was able to choke out, "I'm 32 and I'm all messed up. Can you help me?"  The saving words which would change my life forever came through clearly, "I understand how you feel.  I'm an alcoholic."  A feeling of hope filled the empty hole in my soul and I trusted this stranger could help me.
      On a cold January evening in 1972 the man who would become my sponsor took me to my first AA meeting.  I shook, perspired and spilled coffee on the tweed jacket I had worn to disguise my pitiable state.   I felt devastated that a person like me could end up in a place like this, with people like these.  AA had not been my boyhood dream and helplessness had not been part of my vocabulary.  Had I known how AA was to change my life, I would have broken down the doors to get in.
      After the meeting I asked my new mentor how these people kept from getting drunk.  He replied that AA was a program of abstinence.  I knew what abstinence meant and my thought was that I had overreacted to my situation.  He then added that we do it one day at a time and while looking me straight in the eye asked how I was feeling.  "Terrible" was my honest answer.  He then said those magic words which would stay with me until this day, "you never have to sober up again."
      Each night we were off to a different meeting.   I couldn't remember their names but people remembered mine, shook my hand and made me feel welcome for the first time in a long time.  I felt safe in AA and discovered that others had the same disease and were living normal, happy lives again.

     After eight days of meetings and not drinking it was time to go back to work.  Deadhead First Class on my airline to Europe to begin a six day trip.  I was nervous knowing the drinks were free and it was my style to take advantage of that fact.  When I told my sponsor of my fear he simply advised me to make the decision in the morning if I wanted to stay sober that day or not.  It was really just another day.  Almost too simple to work but it did.  When the champagne was offered, I requested a cup of coffee and fully expected a round of applause from the rest of the passengers.  I was proud of myself and at the same time felt the AA program working in my life a day at a time.
      I struggled with a compulsion to drink for several months with certain times of the day worse than others.  Chocolates, prayer and meetings got me through but there were times I would promise myself to drink the next day.  When that day came I always felt different and thereby postponed the tragedy for yet another day.  Today the compulsion has been lifted and I am a free man who is able to solve his living problems through the teachings of AA.
      My family became beneficiaries of my sobriety when I made the decision to practice my program, first and foremost, at home.  Since I would be relying on AA for my sobriety and sanity there was no purpose in hiding it in my own home.  We began speaking freely of the principles I was learning and the books and literature were in plain view.  My children knew all the slogans and loved to sit around the kitchen table when I brought a new member home.  I had to shoo them away if we needed some private time.  The family was healing and I was becoming the husband and father I always wanted to be.  Alcoholics Anonymous was working in our lives.  The ups and downs of life continue but Alcoholics Anonymous has given me the tools not only to cope with them but to turn them around to my benefit.  I have found peace.  Each day I look forward to awakening and I make my beginning on my knees asking my Higher Power to help me, an alcoholic, to go the day without a drink, to know and carry out His will for me and to be grateful for all I have been given.  At night, out of common courtesy, I return to my knees to thank Him for the day of sobriety.  I couldn't imagine beginning or ending my day another way.

     Today my family and I are living healthy, productive lives thanks to the miracle of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and those before me who were kind enough to pass it down.

God Bless !

Tom D.

I don't remember my first ride in an airplane.  Actually, I have no memories at all of life before age five, when my family returned from Laos in 1966.  Then I have the good memories:  a house being built, my first pony and the green quilt of the Oklahoma prairie as seen from the front seat of a Cessna.  During one of my father's manic phases, he had started a flying club with two airplanes, a 172 and a Sierra Beechcraft for his fellow Engineering Professors.  About once a month, perched on a large cushion, I got to keep a sharp look out for airlines, while we flew around these strange patterns with him often wearing a weird hood covering his eyes. I was alway amazed at his ability to pick out the runway so easily.

Neither my parents nor any of the grandparents drank or kept alcohol in the house.  Mom's side was Mennonite and Dad's side was Hard Working Folk.  Except for the flying, I thought the adult world as boring and glum.  In Stillwater Oklahoma High School seniors with excellent grades only needed to attend morning classes.  Boredom set in the very first week and on a lark I enrolled in the county's Vocational Tech Auto Mechanics class.  At the time I didn't know an Allen wrench from a Phillips head.  There was one other girl and sixty guys in that program.  After eleven years of being in the brainy/nerdy group at school it was very exciting to discover working class males, mechanical things and best of all alcohol.

Strawberry Daiquiris served up at my first and only VoTech party transformed me from a flat chested, pimply faced, shy teen to a sexy and funny lady.  Memories from that night include flirting, laughing and then some how suddenly vomiting in a too white bathroom and panicking trying to clean it up.  There was no memory of driving home or going to bed.  The next morning I woke up excited.  I had found what I was missing in life, vowing to do that again.  But next time I would not drink quite SO much!  During that senior year I also took up my father's offer to finance lessons with his flying club, only $20 per hour.  I soloed on a clear, calm, chilly morning before school.  My 250 lb instructor warned me that the plane would perform better when he got out.  And like my heart, that Cessna seemed to leap in the air and like that first drink, a passion for flying was born.

With the exception of my instrument flying class and Aviation History I had failing  grades my first year at OSU.  With my parents encouragement I dropped out of college.  Opportunities for flying and for partying seemed to open up magically and I took them.  I worked my way up in the aviation world flying larger aircraft.  In the alcohol world I worked downward,eliminating various types of spirits as not agreeing with me.  Finding beer to be the only drink which would allow me to stay up and remember how to get home.  In spite of one scary night, drunk and fighting off a stranger in the back of a parked car outside Wichita, Kansas, I wasn't to have an inkling that I had alcohol problems until moving to Detroit in 1984.

Detroit airport was encircled in Concertina wire and dilapidated homes loomed in the neighborhood. It didnt take me long after arriving during snow flurries in cutoff jeans and a Honda Civic to realize that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  The Part 135 cargo flying was running hot as the car companies were doing "just in time" inventory for their plants.  Most nights I would fly out a box of screws or such to an East Coast factory and return.  Often dawn found me drinking a couple of beers with breakfast as we had ten hours off and I needed eight for bottle to throttle.  I quickly had a couple thousand hours and got my ATP, but no social life at all.

I then met a red-headed construction worker/banner towing J3 Cub owner.  It was love at first flight!  He picked me up for the first date with an ice chest of beer.  We drank, danced and kissed!  I was so elated.  By the next day I was so very low.  While recuperating in a dusty pilot's lounge after flying executives to Canada I started doing the math.  I was airborne that morning just under eight hours since we had left the last bar.  I promised myself that this would never happen again but I rationalized that Bill was my love, my soul mate, the man I should marry.  We were wed within a year and my years of attempts to control my drinking began.

In spite of my best efforts (swearing off with an oath, never drinking at home, drinking only natural wines etc.) three years later Bill and I ended a night of bar hopping with a little fight, which left me with a black eye.  That bruise lasted longer than all the previous regrets from my bingeing.  This was shortly after I had passed training and was a 727 engineer for a major airline.  With just a little bit of yellow remaining, I put on makeup and Ray Bans and suited up to show for a trip.  In a weird God Coincidence, my former sim partner Claire was in the ladies room in ORD Flight Ops. She said "Oh my God Tami, what happened to you!"  I was mortified, for my conscience was much easier to deceive when I was only lying to myself. And thus started the DRY period of Hell.  With white knuckles and clenched fists, aided by flying as much as possible with minimum time layovers, I DID NOT DRINK any more.  Emotional swings which are so common in early sobriety came on strong.  Life as I knew it was over, and with the alcohol gone my marriage was miserable too.

One evening returning from a four day trip I had to pull over on the shoulder of the highway because I was sobbing.  Much shaken, I called a Mental Health Hotline later that night.  God bless the therapist to whom I was referred because at the very first session she insisted I attend Alanon.  My first meeting was in a church basement in Antioch, Illinois.  The AA's met in a large social hall but they directed me to the Alanon meeting, at the door of what formerly was the choir robes closet across the room.  Eight women and one man sat somberly around a large table.  Reading the propaganda hanging on the wall I decided I would do one step a month and be well in a year.  Bill's drinking was definitely the problem and for one dollar a night I could cancel my new therapist and save a lot of money.

The AA's were laughing, clapping and cheering in sharp contrast to the quiet, sometimes teary sharing in our little Alanon room.  But the effect of the love and comfort were immediate--no judgement of drinking here.  When I found out the group met every single day of the week and went for pie afterward I had companionship I desperately needed.  We went to the big AA Saturday night speaker meetings.  I was amazed at the similarity of the inner feelings and experiences.  Why, they drank just I did!

Sticking to my plan to work a Step a month, five months later I got an Alanon sponsor, a lovely woman about my mother's age to hear my 5th Step. I had heard that we are only as sick as our secrets.  Tearfully, I told her five mortifiying secrets.  She put her arms around me, hugged me and told me that she loved me.  Then she said something that was to change the course of my life:  "Do you realize that during most of those situations you were under the influence of alcohol?"

In October of 1992, my mother and I flew to Thailand to visit several students she had hosted in previous years.  On her birthday the group shared a bottle of champagne.  It had been nearly six months since my last drinking debacle.  Could I drink just one little glass?  Succcess!  But the rest of the night was occupied with alcoholic thoughts.  The very next evening, our last in Thailand, a large group went on a river boat dinner cruise. A male friend showed up with a bottle of whiskey, asking each in our party if they would like a drink.  As he asked all around the table, I practiced in my mind saying "No" as every other lady did.  Then, at my turn I said "Yes, please".  Inside my head I was stunned those words came from my mouth.  However, no one seemed to dare or was even looking at me. I said  to myself "Tami, don't drink it."  But I did.  A small incessant buzz started in my head.  Inside my mind's eye I could picture my friends' AA coins.  The words "To Thine Own Self Be True" played and re-played in my head.  That night I went to bed discouraged and hopeles.  I was defeated.

Back in Illinois, instead of crossing the room to join Alanon, I stayed with the AAs.  I stuttered saying the word "Alcoholic" after my name the first time.  But no one was surprised I was there, they had thought I was a drunk all along.  I don't know why but after admitting complete defeat in Bangkok I have never had to take a drink again.  I do know I have been very, very fortunate.  By circumstances, seconds, and inches, in both flying and in recovery, various small miracles have occurred.  Repeatedly God has done for me what I could not do for myself.

Bill wasn't ready to quit driking yet and I felt I couldn't stay sober with him.  We amicably divorded and I moved to California, where I met my second husband, Jack.  We discovered BOAF at the San Diego International BOAF Convention Banquet.  I was so surprised to see so many happy, healthy, well dressed couples.  As a couple we had two goals:  To raise children and continue to be an active part of BOAF.  Over the next twenty years, with the help of AA, counseling and God we parented two daughters and attended many BOAF annual conventions.

Jack had a heart attack in April of 2018 on a hike during a Casa Palmera retreat for recoving pilots.  Thankfully, BOAF friends were at my side that day.  He might have died at a time and location where I would not have been along.  We had already registered and booked a  room for the BOAF Calgary Convention that summer, so I went, traveling by myself, a new widow.  The Calgary nest welcomed me and wrapped their arms around me.  While drinking mint tea with sober pilot friends at a nearby Indian restaurant I laughed a real belly laugh, my first since he died.

BOAF carried me again the next year in Dallas where I was "volun-told" into the Secretary/Treasurer position of BOAF.  I think my friends knew it was better for me to be busy.  I count it a major God Coincidence that when Covid came, and my 757 fleet was parked I had both our BOAF credit card and BOAF history to be able to reach pilots on ZOOM.  Through that isolating summer the daily Big Flock meeting was a life line for me.  Instead of being the worst thing that could happen to our group it opened new horizons.  We have truly been launched into the fourth dimension.  I am still grateful and living one day at a time.  I don't know what the future holds for me, my life is still very unsettled but this mjuch I do know:  BOAF will be a part if it because I will always be a part of BOAF.

Tami H.

by Steve H.

From Corporate Pilot to cab driver to Chief  Pilot.  A success story.

Four years ago I found myself lying on my back staring up at the knots in an open beam ceiling.  They were the same knots I’d stared up at many years before as a young kid, except this time they were moving - not spinning (I’d long ago learned to handle that) - they were changing, undulating, becoming other things.  I closed my eyes tightly, took another shallow breath, and looked again.  Still moving. 

The second and third days of alcohol withdrawal were the worst.  It was October 2003.  I’d had my last drink a couple of days earlier, and I was alone in the childhood home I grew up in and left as a teenager.

I left because I’d been hired for my first “real” flying job other than flight instructing.  I was moving north with my girlfriend to fly piston-singles and twins full of bank checks around California and Oregon.  I loved this job.  It was 1979, I was now 20 years old, and I was getting paid to fly.  It didn’t get any better than that.  Flying had changed my life, and I was good at it.  When I was 22 I took my ATP check-ride.  The FAA gave me a letter saying that I had met all of the requirements for the certificate, and that it would be issued to me on my 23rd birthday.  Life was good. 

By this time I had applied to every airline in the country and a few outside of the country, as well as many corporate operators.  No one was hiring, at least not without a degree (I had left college to take the cargo job).  Then one day I got the call.  A small company was buying a new Learjet, and they needed another pilot.  Mine was the only resume in their files, so they typed me in the airplane, and we started flying trips.  I was in heaven.  A few months later just after my 23rd birthday, I got my ATP in the mail.  

After a couple of years I became a Captain for a large commercial Learjet operator.  Mostly we flew movie stars and entertainment industry people around, which was pretty cool stuff for a 25-year-old pilot.  We regularly spent days in Aspen, Sun Valley, Vail, Cabo, Vegas, Puerto Vallarta, Santa Fe, and New York.  Passengers would invite us to their parties, their resorts, and their restaurants.  When we weren’t flying, we were drinking.  When people found out who we were flying, they wanted to buy us more drinks.  They’d take us snowmobiling, or mountain biking, or sailing, and everything involved plenty of alcohol.  The other pilots would usually run out of steam around 3AM, and head back to the hotel.  For me, voluntarily sleeping wasn’t part of the equation.

After about 8 years of this, my life began to come apart.  It was difficult getting to work on time.  When I’d get back from a trip I wouldn’t go home - I’d go out drinking.  I was miserable and depressed, and the only thing that seemed to relieve that pain was more alcohol.  Life had become an endless routine of drinking, sobering, flying, and drinking.  The job was simply transportation to the next few days of drinking.  Gradually, I started calling in sick when it looked like I couldn’t meet the 10-hour rule, or I just didn’t feel like flying.  My friends were fading away, my employer was getting tired of my unreliability, and after years of putting up with the hell of living with an alcoholic, my girlfriend was in the process of starting a new life for herself separate from mine.

Finally, after I didn’t come home for several days following a trip, and after my employer fired me in absentia for not being available, my girlfriend called our family doctor, who also happened to be my AME.  He told her to have me call him when, or if I ever came home.

A few days later I went to see him.  He asked if I thought I was an alcoholic.  Wanting desperately to minimize my problem and downplay the seriousness of what was coming next, I simply said, “I don’t know.  How about we talk about it over a drink?”  Not finding my reply humorous in the least, he went on to describe the program, and ended with the ominous words, “You will do this, or you will never fly again.”  I was both angry and scared.

A couple of days later I checked into a treatment center in Tucson.  Thirty days after that I came out feeling pretty good, but deep down I was still angry.  I resented their power over me.  I resented their threats to tell my AME if I didn’t comply with their seemingly unreasonable demands.  I resented my career being held over my head.  I resented the things they made me do and say.  I resented everything.  But, I was determined to “jump through the hoops” anyway.  So, after the treatment center I went to aftercare, did the meetings and did the psych evals.  I did everything I was asked to do.  I just didn’t believe it. 

Still angry after a couple of months, I eventually alienated my FAA psychiatrist.  A few months later, my girlfriend had enough, and left.  I was devastated.  It took more than a year to get my Special Issuance.  I went back to work for the same company (I guess my doc told them that I was to be un-fired).  And, much to the dismay of some pilots who felt my return only slowed their upgrades, and to the displeasure of management who now had to monitor me, I started flying trips again.  This was an uncomfortable time.  There were no more wild Aspen trips, no more inebriated sunburns in Cabo, and no more sucking on the oxygen masks all the way home.  In short, it just didn’t seem all that  fun anymore. After eight months of what can only be described as controlled, dry, discomfort, I got myself fired, again.

There was no going back this time.  My Special Issuance was tied to the company, and they didn’t want me back.  I no longer had a medical, and I was convinced there was little chance of getting it reissued.  It really didn’t matter anymore anyway, and now there was no reason not to drink.  If it wasn’t for the fact that my new girlfriend was expecting the birth of our daughter in the next several months, I probably would have immediately started drinking heavily, but I started out slow. 

I kept it together enough to get a cab-driving job, and that barely paid part of the bills.  Six months after my daughter was born, we moved to another city, and I started thinking about flying again.  It was 1993.  I found an outpatient program, and eventually the local BOAF group.  After a few months of doing okay I submitted my “program” to the FAA in an attempt to regain my medical.  They denied it.  They said that unless I was working for an airline or other commercial operator I couldn’t get my 1st Class Medical back.  I was screwed, and I knew it.  I couldn’t get a medical without a job, and I couldn’t get a job without a medical.  At that point I knew I would probably never fly again.

Things went downhill from there.  I started drinking, again. We finally got married, but it lasted less than a year, ending with a nasty separation and eventual divorce.  I did odd jobs - more taxi driving, auto maintenance, delivery driving, waiting tables, restaurant managing, and finally bartending (that one sped things up pretty quickly).  I’d eventually get fired, and move on to the next job.  I often couldn’t pay my rent, got evicted from several places, and moved five or six times in as many years.  The only time I was sober was when my daughter was with me on the weekends.  This went on for years.

Finally, in 2003 I simply gave up going to work.  I was on unemployment, had no money, and was about to be evicted again.  A few days later, after fending off the landlord, I found out that my father had suffered a heart attack, and was in a hospital in Southern California.  I had just finished the agony of detoxing on my own, again, and I flew down to take care of him.  A month and half later, he died in the hospital.  This was the longest I had been sober in several years, and it ended quickly.

The next few weeks were a hellish blur.  Then I found myself staring up at that open beamed ceiling.  I knew I needed water, but I kept falling down when I’d try to walk.  I had full-on DT’s.  I was in serious alcohol withdrawal, and was in and out of delirium.  After slamming my face into the floor a second time, I began crawling to the sink, and slowly began re-hydrating.  I felt I was close to dying.  I could feel my breathing stop, and it seemed I had to consciously choose to take another breath.  I was hearing and seeing things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 

In that moment I finally realized that I wanted to live. There were more things I wanted to do with my life.  I wanted to experience more of the world.  I wanted to feel those experiences.  I wanted to be there for my daughter.  I wanted to watch her grow up. And, I knew that if I didn’t stop drinking, I was going to die, that is, if I didn’t die in the next few hours.  Amazingly, it wasn’t until that moment that I knew I could never drink again; that for me alcohol equaled incredible pain and suffering.  It was in that moment that the world changed.  Two days later my brother in law, who soon became my best friend, walked in the door and asked if I wanted help.  I said yes.

I found a house to rent near my sister and family, and with their help over the next couple of years I devoted myself to rebuilding my life.  I reconnected with my daughter, then 11, and she started flying down to California to spend vacations and summers with me.  I built an amicable relationship with my ex-wife, and we soon began to equally share decision-making regarding my daughter.  I paid off old debts, starting fixing my destroyed credit, and invested time and money into remodeling and selling my father’s home, which gave me financial breathing room.

I began to experience that familiar sense of self-confidence and self-esteem that had all but disappeared years before.  I worked with a therapist, and started to allow myself to experience emotions that I’d been numbing with alcohol for years.  The difference was that now I was sober, not just abstaining.  I was doing this for me, not someone else, and not for a career.  I was no longer “jumping through hoops.”  This was real work.  It took daily, sometimes hourly attention and determination.  I had to continually remind myself of the pain (this seems to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to sobriety) but it gradually became easier, and I quickly settled into a life different than I had ever known.  In the past I had quit drinking several times, but sobriety was a concept I couldn’t comprehend.  At that time, life not related to alcohol was unimaginable.   Then, after about six months of being sober I realized that I missed flying.  

I talked with my AME, and began to tackle the problem of getting my First Class Medical back.  I knew this was going to take years, if I could do it at all.  I also knew that there was little or no precedent for getting a Special Issuance outside of the airline sponsored H.I.M.S. program, or through a commercial operator’s EAP.   After the first FAA denial, I started putting together a program of treatment and monitoring that involved multiple layers of verification.  Eventually, I had what I felt exceeded the FAA sanctioned airline program.  I went down to see Joe Pursch for a psych evaluation, and we talked many times over the next few months.  With his help and recommendation, with my AME as an advocate willing to act as my Medical Sponsor, as well as with multiple iterations, suggestions, and denials from FAA, I finally came up with a plan that everyone felt would work.

In addition to several ongoing independent monitoring reports, regular evaluations, and random monthly testing, part of that plan involved BOAF.  I called Beth C. of the PDX nest, and she agreed to contact the local members to see if everyone could get together for regular meetings again.  Of course, being who they are, they all said yes, and we began to meet weekly.  That was the missing piece.  With their years of experience, their acceptance of my previous disinterest in AA, their hope, honesty, and shared strength, BOAF became an integral part of my program.

During this process I became increasingly interested in helping others to recover before they got to the point I did.  I went back to school.  I began work toward an Alcohol and Drug Counselor Certificate.  I began to volunteer as a Crisis Intervention Counselor on alcohol and drug hotlines and national Lifelines, and I was eventually asked to serve on their advisory board.

My relationship with my daughter continued to grow, and she was now spending at least half of her time with me.  I had moved back up north, bought a house, and we worked on the remodel together, giving her a home she could count on staying in.  I finally began to understand and love parenthood. 

With three years of sobriety, a solid program, and the support of many friends and professionals willing to put their asses on the line for me, in December of 2006 I received a rare Special Issuance First Class Medical from the FAA, while not employed by an airline or commercial operator.  I immediately started working on aircraft re-currency.  After a few hours of flying, I did my BFR, my Instrument Proficiency check, got current in several aircraft, and put together a resume.   

I was pretty nervous about cold-calling companies after all this time, so I contacted my old employer to see if I could get part-time flying work.  No luck.  Finally, I dusted off my old approach of sneaking over fences and going in back doors to get face to face with Chief Pilots - a much different task at age 48, in the post 9/11 security world.  After some consideration (I actually didn't climb over fences this time for fear of being arrested or shot) I used the tried-and-true method of waiting outside of gates, and then just driving in when they opened for someone else.  Anyway, I caught the first Chief Pilot on his way out for a flight.  He looked over the resume while I waited for the inevitable, "Uh, what's up with the missing 15 years?"  Knowing that the only way to approach this was directly and honestly, I briefly explained everything.  He paused, looked at me closely for a moment, went back to the resume, and said, "Okay, sounds good, let's move on."  I got the same response from almost everyone I talked to.  Within a week I accepted a job offer for a Learjet Captain’s position.  I went through re-currency training, and started flying trips.  I was nervous, scared, worried, elated, confident, and proud - all those feelings I didn’t used to like, and couldn’t stand to experience, but which are now just a normal part of a grateful life.

Recently I became Chief Pilot.  Sobriety is a wonderful thing. 

           Steve H.

In the Hot Seat

By Rhett T.

How a pilot traded the “cold seat” of a jail cell for the “hot seat” of rehabilitation.

It was “hot seat” day in treatment.  It all finally started to make sense to me:  the reasons I was in treatment, the harm and near destruction of my family and, most importantly, what I needed to do to move my life forward again.  The weight of my past was finally lifting, and the train wreck I had become had finally stopped.
              This was the first moment in a long time that I can remember actually being honest with myself and with my emotions.  I let down the shield I thought protected me emotionally from the world.  Finally, it was time to honestly deal with all the emotions I had neglected for so long.  Up until this point in my life I had considered a man to be someone who maintains an even keel and doesn’t show a lot of emotions or feelings.  I thought showing emotions was a sign of weakness.  Talking about how I felt was totally foreign to me and made me feel uncomfortable.  I truly thought of this behavior as unacceptable.  What would other people think?  How wrong I was.  A real man deals with these things and is not afraid of what other people think.  It was one of my major character defects.

What it was like

            Let me give you some background.  I knew I had a drinking problem long before my arrest for drinking and driving.  I began my progressive spiral downward at the age of 13.  My friends and I would steal as much booze from our homes as we could and mix it all together to create an ill tasting drink that did the job it was intended to do.
             I was a troublemaker growing up.  Sneaking out of the house at night, driving the parent’s car underage, getting poor grades.   I was generally a bratty, spoiled rich kid.  I had lots of friends and had the ability to hang out with the jocks and the stoners.  I also had that underlining “uneasy feeling” about myself that magically vanished when I drank.  I was tracking down the wrong path at an early age, getting into trouble and running with the wrong crowd.  I never really had to pay any consequences for my actions.  Sure, I would get grounded or scolded but that never did anything.  It certainly did not teach me a lesson or hold me accountable for my actions.  I would learn this lesson later in life.
             I was extremely fortunate that my father offered to pay for some flying lessons at the age of 16.  I quickly fell in love with aviation and was able to get myself focused on my future.  I went to college with my private license in hand with the intention of completing my aviation degree in 4 years.  In college my drinking continued.  I was able to drink more and more and started to have blackouts where I couldn’t remember the night before.  It was a little scary and sometimes embarrassing to hear from others the things I had done the night before.  I really didn’t think much about it.  I certainly did not think I had a drinking problem so I continued to stay focused on aviation.  I believe it kept me out of trouble and stymied my disease until my late thirties.  I knew I had to stay competitive with others which also kept me in line.  However, I still had the problem of being comfortable in my own skin. 
             My life seemed to progress.  I got a job at a commuter airline, got married, bought a house and had kids.  Perfect right?  Wrong!  I started to hide my drinking.  A little at first. My wife would send me to the store to buy beer and I would buy for us and then I would buy for me.  I continued to lie to my wife about all sorts of things.  This started to cause problems because my wife wanted accountability (like any sane person would) and I couldn’t provide it.  I would let time heal whatever situation I had created and be back on the same road again soon after.

What happened

            The DUI that I received in November of 2004 was going to ensure that I would pay for my actions.  I made the decision to make the experience a positive one and to get something from it that I could use for the rest of my life.  Remembering and acknowledging the past is a powerful tool for me in maintaining my sobriety.  One of the harshest consequences I have had to face from my DUI was being incarcerated for 10 days.  Those of you out there that have not been to jail believe me when I say that it completely sucks. 
              I had a positive attitude during my self-surrender, thinking I would spend 24 hours in jail and then be released with a requirement to spend nights in “tent city” for ten days.  Well, that plan was washed away quickly when I learned that a paperwork mix-up had occurred and I was told to get out of my clothes and to put on the “stripes”.  In this system there are two sides of the jail, the “stripes” where your typical inmates go and the easier softer side.  On this side you wear the clothes on your back and the rules and environment are much more relaxed.  It’s still not pleasant but it’s Club-Med compared to the “stripes”. 
               I got the standard issue “stripes” including the famous pink underwear.  I was not going to leave for “work release” and I was going to the real jail not the Club-Med side.  I couldn’t believe this; I was really going to jail.  How could this be happening to me?  I was floored.  I had no one to whom I could complain.  I could not make any calls, purchase food from the vending machines, purchase soda, purchase anything.  I was going to jail and that was that.  The in-processing was hell.  You go from holding tank to holding tank.   The tanks are small and there are a lot of people in them.  There is barely enough room to fit everyone.  Most people including myself found sitting space on the concrete floor.  The tanks are hot and stuffy and after a few hours in tight quarters people start to get restless.  You kind of get to know the men with which you share such tight confines, and I was known as the “teacher”.  Not because I was trying to teach anyone anything but because, I believe, I looked out of place.  I certainly felt that way.  I had one guy tell me I wasn’t going to make it and he wanted to buy my glasses.  Fear was close to my heart and obviously I was wearing it.
                The smell is something else I will never forget.  It’s hard to put a finger on what it is, but it’s definitely memorable in a bad way.  After I was officially processed, I finally made it to general population and received some instructions from another inmate on life in jail.  Once I got some time and space to myself I just sat there on the cold steel seat looking over the rest of the inmates.  Although the cold seat was a far cry from the “hot seat” in treatment, it was similarly sobering.  I was surrounded by other inmates yet I was alone.  My decisions put me in this place and I was the FNG in this completely foreign world.  I was sacred.  My mind was numb.  I was definitely wearing my fear and trying not to break down when a man approached me, put his arm around me and said “take it all in and never forget because you never want to come back”.  I feebly nodded my head and said “I will”.  I did take it all in and will never forget.  Sometimes on my way home from work I will drive by the “institution” and see people outside waiting for their turn to go and do their time.  It quickly reminds me of what drinking has in store for me if I should choose to try again.

            Getting back to the “hot seat” itself, it is a reading of your assets and liabilities according to how your peers see you in front of them.  It’s a very good way of busting egos and getting people to realize the potential they have within themselves.
              In my case the liabilities were easy to see.   I seemed to almost feel comfortable hearing what I did wrong and focusing on how to do better the next time.  So, listening to my liabilities was really no big deal.  The assets, on the other hand, had a different effect on me.  Hearing things like “you’ve got way too much going for you to let this keep you down” or “You’re a pilot dude, you’re bigger than this” was difficult for me to hear. 
              I started to cry and felt as if someone had lifted the weight of the world from me.  This display of emotion was necessary and I felt like a blind man who somehow could see again.  I realized that although I indeed had some big boulders in front of me they could be moved and I was going to make it happen. 

What it is like now

            Until I became sober I used booze to numb my emotions and escape having to deal with my problems.  Unless I was willing to lose my sense of self and my family this was an unacceptable way of life.  I had hurt my wife like I had hurt no one ever before.  I could see it in her eyes.  She was truly sad and it was all because of me and my drinking.  She asked such simple things of me.  I was unwilling to let my own wife get to really know me and that would have to change.  I had to let go of the fear.  I needed to trust her with everything, all my emotions and feelings, and truly love her.  I needed to be accountable for my actions for the first time in my life. 
              I found magical power in a thing called HOPE.  I could finally accept the past and most importantly let it go and stop beating myself up for all the insanity drinking brought me.  I was hearing from perfect strangers that I had more positive things in my life than even I realized.  How could they know this?  They didn’t even know me.  How could they know things about me and my life that I hadn’t even known myself?  Can’t we all laugh at the puzzle we create for ourselves?  The time for hurting and hating myself was over.
              Today, I am not embarrassed about the past because without it, I’m not who I am today.  Today, I love me and that is a really awesome thing.  I know that I have and will make mistakes.  The difference now is that because of AA, I have developed healthy tools and habits for dealing with such things.  I also have strength from God to deal with the mistakes or problems no matter how large they may seem.  I have lived the saying “this too shall pass” and things will get better, never worse, provided I do not take that first drink. 
               I have learned about a thing called gratitude and what it means to be grateful.  I have learned the lessons well.  My time in jail will always be a reminder for me of what lies ahead if I choose to drink.  I learned from my hot seat in treatment and my cold seat in jail that no matter how bad life seems I can always find something for which to be grateful.  I know now how important it is for me to leave the shield down and deal with life on life’s terms.  It is the foundation of my overall health and well being, not to mention the health and welfare of my marriage and every other established relationship in my life.

Rhett T.

A "Soaring" Story of Recovery

by  Scott A.

A sailplane pilot makes the big time

I remember wanting to be drunk before I was ever drunk.   I would watch others who were drinking and having fun and I wanted to be just like them.  I wanted to be witty, charming, fun, able to tell a story.  Fortunately I had some good parents.  They watched what I did closely, supported me in my dreams and made sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.  I didn't have many wants that were not fulfilled.  One of the earliest dreams was to be a pilot, so when I announced at the age of 14 that I wanted pilot lessons for Christmas I got them.  It was shortly after this that I also got my first real experience with drinking.

Looking back it seems almost innocent, something I would expect most adolescents might do.  I took two beers and hid them in my bedroom and waited for the right night to drink them.  I took the cans out of hiding many times and looked at them, slowly tilting them so I could feel the magical liquid I knew was inside.  Then the perfect night came to drink them.  It was a Friday night, my parents were in bed asleep and the temptation to experience this happiness in a can overcame me. The two warm old beers worked .  I was euphoric.  I had the greatest time ever just sitting in my bedroom drinking alone.   The next morning was not so much fun as I also got to experience my first hangover.  I remember the room spinning around and having a headache of the type I had never experienced before.  I knew that drinking again would not be a good idea as I never wanted to feel as bad as I did that morning.

While at home I functioned well.  Outside my family my socialization skills were very low as a result of poor self-esteem.  So when some of the more popular kids asked me to go out with them and party one weekend I jumped at the chance.  The beer was again flowing and I was excited to participate.  For the first time in my life I felt liked I belonged with others.  I became the witty, charming and fun loving person I had always wanted to be.  As the night progressed I ended up going a bit further than the others.  I went for a joy ride on a friends off-road vehicle, went to my family's business and showed off my new charm to some of the employees and then decided that going to a school event would be a good idea.  This whole night ended up with my parents pulling me out of the school event and threatening to take me to a police station to have a breath test.  The verdict was being grounded off my flying lessons for a week and I was also grounded to the house for the rest of the weekend.  This punishment was so light that it frightened me.  I knew I was given a pardon this time and I did not want to imagine what would happen if I tried a stunt like this in the future.  I never drank again while in high school.

I concentrated on getting my private pilot's license.  I received my ticket shortly after my 17th birthday and decided I would look at flying as a career.  I graduated from high school and was accepted to two different university flight programs but decided to attend a nearby community college flight program instead.  The decision to stick close to home was because I had somehow found myself a girl in the final few months of school and I knew this would not last if I went to school further away.  Now I understand that this belief was just a figment of my insecurity.  This was the first time I made a decision that was life altering based on fear.

Without the watchful eye of my parents my experience at college was much different then high school.  Many training flights were regularly conducted with a hangover though I was very aware of the 8 hour rule.  After a few months of this I just decided to only fly later in the afternoon.  That way my schooling would not get in the way of my consumption.  This worked so well the next trimester I decided to do the same with my classes.  The first year of college turned out to be one large party.  Most evenings after class I would spend some time having cocktails with friends and on the weekends it would be nonstop.  The first year went alright.  I was not on the dean's list but I was not on academic probation either.  For the first time I felt that I was in control of my life.

The first summer back home I decided to move in with high school sweetheart and her mother.  This was one of those dismal failures.  My attitudes from college, my independence and lack of social skills showed.  By the end of summer all I had done was prove to my fiancés mother that I was not who she wanted as a son-in-law.  Looking back I found myself unable to communicate my intentions, thoughts, and feelings to both my fiancé and her family.  The result was several verbal confrontations ending in my yelling and hollering.  While my personal relationship failed the summer of '90 it was the last time I enjoyed a chemical free four months for years, and I enjoyed a few fun weekends.  One was flying to the EAA Fly-In with some friends.  I still remember the roar and the shaking ground as the Concord took off.  I had formed part of my identity as a pilot.

The next year in college my grades plummeted and I found myself on the verge of academic probation.  However, I filled my requirements for both the commercial and instrument license along with passing both written exams.  My drinking rapidly progressed throughout the year.  I ended up in quite a few fights resulting in the loss of friends.  I remember the last day of classes an acquaintance I was going to get a house with for the summer telling me that I needed to quit drinking.  This was the first of many times I was told by someone that maybe I should consider not drinking.  I took it as an insult.

The next summer my fiancé informed me she no longer wanted to marry me and she intended to move out.  I begged and made promises in hopes I could change her mind.  The promises did not last long.  The rest of my summer, probably the next five years, was spent drinking in an attempt to not face the pain I felt when I came home from work that afternoon and found she had moved out.  At the age of 20 I was now a full fledged, practicing alcoholic.  

Eventually I was put on academic probation and I flew my last training flight on  December 5th, 1991.  At the end of that trimester I was put on academic suspension.  I was now out of money and out of college.  I got a job at the local 7-11.  However, I was then given the opportunity to return to college a couple of years later, after working several menial jobs.  I kept drinking.  The day before final exams during my fourth year at the community college with full intentions to study for exams and not drink I found myself drunk wishing I was not.  Failing out of the fourth year of college was difficult and I was kicked out of campus housing and found myself homeless.  Over the next many years I found jobs that allowed my drinking to continue.  Mainly sales jobs.  I found they didn't care how you showed up to work as long as you performed. 

The next time I saw the person who would become my wife she asked if I wanted to attend an AA meeting with her.  I was desperate for the first time in my life.  I was willing to do anything to get out of trouble.  At that meeting one of the members told me I was at a crossroads in my life and that I could either quit drinking or I probably would end up dying.  That night I did not believe him.  I found my ability to attend meetings in the tradition stating that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.  That is what I said for the first three months:  "Hello my name is Scott and I have a desire to stop drinking".  I needed three months of constant sobriety to comprehend how far down the scales I had gone.   After I could see my past through sober eyes I was able to be honest with myself for the first time and admit that I was an alcoholic. 

We got married and had a child that I am proud to say has never seen me intoxicated.  My life slowly started to improve, yet there was still something missing in my life:  a belief and reliance on a higher power.  This took about three years to gain.  Over time I slowly found that my prayers were answered at least when I prayed for God's will and his help.  I was able to accept and embrace the fact that I did not know everything.  With this new found faith I was able to face life differently.  I returned to community college and completed a degree.  I asked for help and guidance and God gave it to me.

I late 2005 I met a person who invited me out to enjoy a day of soaring that next summer.  In June 2006 I climbed into a glider.  This was the first time in over 14 years I had been inside a cockpit of a small aircraft with an honest intent to fly it.  Later that summer I obtained my glider rating.  I also at this time found Birds of a Feather.  Then, in Spring 2007 I obtained my commercial glider ticket.  When I had the opportunity to become a tow pilot, I obtained a tail wheel endorsement and was training to tow gliders.  I started to accumulate hours.

It dawned on me that I could now go to a local FBO and rent aircraft again as I was a fully qualified power pilot.  I called the flight school I dropped out of and laid my history out for them.  I was told that I would probably qualify to be a flight instructor someday depending on my skills and that someone with my past might even be hired by an airline at some point.  So I signed up to finish more flight training.  I am not sure what will happen in the future.  It may be the impossible dream.  Yet I know I will never look back and think "what if".   Whatever happens I know it will be exactly what God wants.... that is all that really matters anymore.

Scott A.

Bottle’(d) Rocket

Alcohol rocketed him to disaster
but this pilot is coming back down to earth on wings of sobriety

By Corey S.
     I wanted to be a pilot since the age of 4 when I first rode on a Braniff 727.  The crew let me come into the cockpit.  I was mesmerized by all the switches, gauges and levers.  Those 3 gentlemen were Gods to me!!  The short time shared out of their day made my decision for me.  I grew up watching "Top Gun", "Iron Eagle", and "Final Countdown" waiting for my chance to get into the air.  It was all I ever wanted to do.  It was my dream, my goal in life to be a pilot.

      I drank to get drunk from the beginning around the age of 13.  I was a “party-er”.  Alcohol made me whatever I thought the current crowd wanted me to be.  It made me fun, an expert on many subjects, wild and crazy and therefore, popular.  They wouldn’t like the dull, boring, and glum Corey.  I lived to have fun and party.  Fun it was through my teens and early twenties.  A pattern of destruction began to develop oblivious to me.  I soon began to get into trouble with the law, girlfriends, friends, my job and the college that I attended.  I just thought that’s part of what happens when you get drunk and have fun.  I always managed to work my way through these situations never seeing the common denominator…..KING ALCOHOL.  I was an intelligent, honor student by day and an out of control, party animal by night or weekend.  I was indeed a real Jekyll and Hyde as the Big Book states. 
      I managed to make it out of college without a prison term and a Bachelor’s Degree!!  However, my alcohol and partying got in the way of my dreams of flying.  I got my Private when I was 18 and a freshman.  During my esteemed 4.5 years of “study”, my goal of having my Commercial was no where close.  My life took an interesting and much needed (to find out later) detour to the oil fields.  There I worked my way up to be the youngest project manager in my company’s history before resigning prior to getting fired for my troubles with alcohol.  I didn’t think of it as a problem because my goal of quitting after this project to start my flying career just got moved up a month or so.  I had been bitten again by the flying bug a year or so earlier and had completed my instrument, commercial and multi while working my job. 

     My home life was a mess.  My selfishness and all of my “isms” had nearly destroyed my marriage several times.  I was unhappily married, in a job that wasn’t my dream, stressed out over money and the wreckage of my past and future!  My drinking became my way of dealing with these problems even though I didn’t know it.   My wife had finally had enough.  I was faced with a decision, booze or my family.  I gave up drinking, no thoughts- no problem, or so I thought.  About this time I had begun Flight Instructing.  I decided that aviation and my family were too much to risk over alcohol.  I went a long time without a drink on self-will.  Since I was “doing so well” (outwardly) my wife and I decided that we could limit and control my drinking.  I was allowed to drink at special occasions a handful of times during the year.  My birthday, weddings, etc.  At every one of them, I made up for lost time!  I was frequently going to the store for more after trying to limit myself or I was the last one partying at functions looking for companionship.  My tolerance was amazing.  When the time came to drink I never let anyone down…out came the animal….more crazy and destructive than ever.  Drinking and partying were no longer the fun they were.  I had become a blackout drinker now and was doing horrible things while drunk with little or no recollection.  Once I started drinking, I couldn’t get enough booze in me.  I had to fill this hole in my soul.  After a few repeat performances, the joint control experiment with my wife ended.  I swore never to drink again.  I was once again dry and running on willpower.  I was one miserable person but I couldn’t figure out why.  I could see that I had a problem with alcohol but it wasn’t every time and I didn’t drink everyday therefore, I was not an alcoholic.

     In the mean time, I had worked my way up from CFI, to jump pilot, to charter, to fractionals and now a major airline.  All was going according to MY plan.  At every job, something was wrong.  “If I could just get to the next company, all of my problems would be solved.”  I said this countless times.  Here I was now, at a major airline, the top of the “game”.  So what was still wrong with me?  I wasn’t happy.  Economic stress, stress of the job, selfishness, and ego were wearing my dryness down. 
       Finally, on a layover after a long day I decided that it would be OK to have a beer at dinner with the crew.  Within 6 months of this decision, I went from 1 or 2 beers with dinner and a false sense of control, back to partying and black out drinking.  It happened so quickly.  This is what cost me my job.  I ended up getting fired from the best job in the world showing up for duty after being out too late partying.  My world ended.  My life was over!  What would everyone think?  My wife didn’t know I was living this lifestyle on the road.  Neither did my mentor who got me my job interview at the airline.  Now, I had a lot of "getting honest" to do and that feat looked as high as Mt. Everest!! 

     First, I got honest with myself:  I was an alcoholic.  I needed help.  Unfortunately, it was too late to save my job, my licenses and my medical, but not too late to save me.  My family once again stood by me….GOD BLESS THEM! I went to treatment and got an education.  I had my spiritual experience there after hitting bottom.  I discovered I could be spiritual without being religious.  I discovered that the GOD of my childhood, that I fired, was still waiting for me.  I cried out for help and HE was there.  HE relieved me of all of the guilt, shame, remorse and the “crap” I felt about the past.  HE also relieved me of my fear of the future.  Over the next several hours after my plea, a huge weight was lifted.  A euphoric feeling and peace came over me.  I knew everything was going to be OK. 
      I got home and got to work on me.  I went to an IOP program, got an SAP, an AME, but most importantly, a sponsor.  I have worked the 12 steps that were suggested as a program of recovery and I continue to work on me.  I am my biggest problem.  Along the way, I found my old career to come in handy!  God blessed me with a fantastic job.  Now I know why I had to go to the oil field years ago instead diving into aviation.  I needed fellowship and support and there was no local nest of BOAF.  God blessed me with pulling one together.  I now know I am not alone.  Thanks to my brother’s in BOAF and AA, by sharing their experience, strength, and hope, I have hope and a better knowledge of myself.  I know I need the program of AA to stay sober…all of it, not a buffet plan, not my job back, more money or a geographical cure.  I needed to experience a dry life to know that alcohol wasn’t my problem, it was my solution.  I needed to experience a dry life to know that I could not stay sober on will power alone. 

     Today some of the promises have come true and some are still in progress!  Losing my job, one of the things I loved most, was the best thing that ever happened to me.  Thanks to the miracles of this program I have a new job, a greatly improved family life, and life on life’s terms.  I have a solution that doesn’t involve alcohol.  I have a sponsor and a sponsee.  I get my “kicks” out of working with others instead looking for it in a bottle of booze.  I am on a path to return to aviation IF IT IS GOD’S PLAN FOR ME.  I am OK with it if it is not.  I pray every morning for God to run my life and for his will to be done…not mine.  I tried mine already and have seen the results.  I try to do the next right thing during the day and at night I give thanks to God for all that I have.  I need AA and I need my God.

     My life, my careers, and my marriage have been like a bottle rocket.  I shot up quick, bright, and fast with an occasional dip and little or no guidance.  I had quite an explosion!!  Now, I am floating back down to earth on reality with a firm foundation beneath my feet.  My path as I descend is uncertain to me but is guided none the less.  Where I land, I am not sure, but it will be Gods will and that is what matters to me.     

Corey S. 

Bottle’(d) Rocket
Part 2
Corey S.

Hello Family,

      Thanks to the miracles of AA, I felt necessary to update my status to share my experience, strength and hope.  To all who are new to recovery do not quit until the miracle happens.  If it can happen to me it can happen for you if you work for it.

      Since my last story my life just keeps getting better due to continued work on my program of recovery.  I have had the privilege of working with several newcomers, help start a meeting in my small hometown, attended some conventions and am currently working through the traditions of AA with my sponsor.  I do all of these things in addition to my daily routine of prayer, meditation, and continued personal inventory to improve my spiritual condition.  I mention all these things because as a result of this work and the grace of my higher power, my airline job was given back to me!!!  This sort of thing didn’t occur previously at my company.  Thanks to AA and BOAF there are now four pilots back to work with a pathway for others to follow.  It was a long and arduous journey but thanks to the help of many and some hard work, it IS possible!

            First and foremost was recovery.  Getting a sponsor, working the 12 steps, going to meetings, praying, reading the Big Book and working with others was and is the foundation upon which my life rests.  Secondly, ALPA Aero medical, BOAF fellowship and several doctors rendered aid in a lot of self-growth areas and a special issuance medical was given back to me.  Next came all of my written tests, flight training and check-rides for the return of my certificates.  Even with this completed there was no guarantee of employment.  I followed my heart and trusted my higher power that things would turn out the way they were supposed to regardless of my expectations.  Within months of my last check ride I was asked to come back to work and given a class date!

            I have been given a new pair of glasses through which to look at the world.  I have a whole new gratitude for my job.  I thank God almost daily when in the cockpit!  All the small stuff I used to sweat about no longer controls and consumes me (Union, company, contract, etc.), all of which were beyond my control.  Thanks serenity prayer!  I have a whole new way to work with others and carry the message of AA.  Another benefit has been attending meetings on the road and meeting extended family members. I must say that just because my job was given back to me doesn’t mean my problems stopped. I still have life on life’s terms.  Today however, I have a spiritual tool kit full of tools to meet life’s challenges as they come.  I have been given all of this and more for following “a few simple rules”.

God Bless,

Corey S.
IAH Nest                                                                             

ONE YEAR SOBER

A PILOT ONE YEAR SOBER TELLS HIS STORY OF RECOVERY

Raised in Northern California, I grew up smoking grass in high school, and never drank alcohol until at 25 I got a job as a barback and the restaurant decided to make me a waiter/bartender. I had to ask what gin and vodka was, and since we were in the wine country I HAD to learn to appreciate the fruits of the vine, but my preference was always the weed of the ditch. I've been involved in the dance and food industry, and was a hang glider pilot for almost a  decade. When George Lucas talked about scum and villanary I thought of my friends in all three groups.
 
  I saw a lot of friends get involved with heavier illegal drugs, and watched a lot of friends go from a legal beer after a long night waiting tables to a legal glass of wine and then to legal vodka tonics. Some mixed everything. Some controlled it, and just took the edge off. Some didn't do anything.

  I was only a mild drinker through the years, and stopped smoking grass when I started flying fixed wing in 1989. It was only when I was recovering from surgery in 2005 that I became a drug addict and alcoholic.
 
  Like Dr. House, my drug of choice was Vicodin. After surgery I re-injured my knee during physical therapy, and my Doc did not want to reopen it, he wanted to give it a chance to recover on it's own. But eventually I ran out of script for Vitamin V and shifted to alcohol. Even after I returned to work I continued to drink, but ONLY ON MY TIME OFF. I NEVER came to work under the influence and rarely drank on layovers, but I knew it was only a matter if time.
 
But at home I did drive under the influence more than once. I'm not proud of it, but it's a fact, and if I had been busted my career would have been over and I would have been in jail. Yes, I knew about the severe penalties if I had been caught, but at the point in my addiction they weren't going to stop me. The addiction had taken over.
 
My friends saw it happening, but no one wanted to say anything. They were all waiting for me to hit bottom and realize it myself, and I was waiting for them to say something. The liquor store clerks were giving me pitying looks, like they knew my future was already written.
 
  Finally at the end of 2007 I started trying to get better, and started trying to quit. Biographies like “Alice Cooper: Golf Monster”, Eddie Guerrero’s “Cheating Death, Stealing Life” and Pete Hamil’s “A Drinking Life” inspired me with their stories of those who had won the battle. Other books taught me of the physical changes my body had gone through as it became addicted, and the changes I would have to go through to come out of it and why it was so hard. My resolve was growing every day, but my mind and body continued to resist.

On March 25, 2008 I woke up and decided to make it stick. The first months were hell. I’d walk by a wine display in a grocery store and could taste the richness of a good red. On a lazy Sunday I’d wake up and all I wanted to do was go get a bottle of rum, lay on the couch, drink all day and get as high as I could. I gutted my garage and rebuilt my shop, forcing myself to focus on an old hobby that has since become a pleasure again.

On trips I’d slam-click my crew, and as the months of sobriety wore on I gradually started telling fellow crewmembers the real reason I wasn’t going to the bar with them. More than once the other pilot would tell me other their own battles and success, and more than once I later got a call from another crewmember, asking if they could come over and talk about how I was able to stop. Sometimes I could smell the liquor on their breath and see the shadows in their eyes.

  I've had some great support from people to get here, and at a place I volunteer at my problems and recovery were an open secret. I came home from a miserable series of trips over the holidays and was hanging out on a slow day, everyone was giving me a good natured hard time for being so  fuzzy headed. The chief volunteer chimed in with 'Yeah, but are you sober?'  and when I responded without thinking 'Nine and a half months now.',  people started clapping. Checking in for my commute one day, the gate agent kept trying to hide a big smile. When I caught her eye and said “What?” she came out from behind the ticket counter, gave me a hug and said “You just look so GOOD now!”.
 
I've since found out that alcoholism runs in my family (on both sides) and my dad had quit before I ever really saw him drinking. When I was smoking grass I never wanted to try anything worse, but then I always had access to and only smoked some very fine weed. When I took Vicodin, I only wanted more.

I have nightmares. I have nightmares that I’m with friends and I look down and see that I’m drinking. And I’m angry because I’ve lapsed after fighting so hard to get my life back. When I wake up and see that I’m still sober I feel like I’ve been given a treasure of another day. But I also know that sometimes I still want to get high again, and the desire will probably never truly go away.
 
That's the word from my layover in Paris, where every day is a gift, and every day is a test.
 
 
  Steve K.

A WONDERFUL LIFE 

     A pilot living happy, joyous and free   

     I'm sitting on an aircraft commuting home thinking of how wonderful my life has turned out. I owe it all to Alcohol and Drugs. I know that sounds crazy but I am an alcoholic and addict in recovery.  April 2nd 1998 was when I started the "one day at a time" life style. I didn’t know where it would take me. I was just tired of me and what I had turned into. I didn’t know about the disease of chemical dependency and I certainly didn’t understand it, but I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
     I remember growing up as a young boy my granddad would come every Thursday and pick my sister and me up from school. Gramps would always go right to dad’s liquor closet and he would drink at least half a bottle before my parents would come home from work. All those years I never understood why I would see him the next morning sleeping in the guest room before I went to school.  Little did I know but gramps and I would have more in common then I thought. The difference was that he was a happy drunk.  He’d get drunk, be funny and nobody thought anything of it. 
      Let's just say I wasn’t very funny when I drank.  I was in 6th grade, 11 or 12 years old, when I remember on weekends going out to football games and we would get somebody to buy us Boones Farm apple wine. I would do that most every weekend that I can remember.  It gave me this great feeling of being part of the gang and in the beginning I was funny too. I like the fact I could be cool and hang out with the cool crowd.  It was not long after that someone brought some pot to the weekend booze party. Boy did that hit the spot. It was if I’d been looking for this all my life, the feeling that alcohol and pot gave me was like nothing I ever felt before. I was hooked!  Right there in 6th grade I was an alcoholic and addict, I and nobody else knew it at the time. Although I would continue this for another 20 plus years it just went down the hill from there. I did have some great times in my life before I got sober but they always involved alcohol or drugs.  I continued to same patterns right into high school.  Growing up in New York state in the 70’s and early 80’s you could drink at 18 years old and back then I think most of the bars I went to knew I was under age but thought it was harmless to let a couple of kids in for a few beers.  Besides, we never caused any trouble because we knew we where getting away with being somewhere we shouldn’t be. 

      When I was 16 years old I was able to get my drivers license.  Not six months later, my parents were having a Christmas party and I was sneaking drinks in the kitchen when nobody was looking. I did that for an hour or two until it was time for me to go pick up a friend. I got in my car and proceeded to my friend's house.  I guess my driving wasn’t very good because I never made it; instead I got pulled over and received my first DUI.  Back then I swore to the judge that it would never happen again and even my parents believed me.  I don’t think it was more then a week later I was back to drinking, but I made sure I had gum or mints with me to mask the smell; I think I even bought a car freshener.  I kept going to the same bars with the same people, the difference was I always seemed to drink more then everyone else. At my high school graduation I remember going to the bar at 11:30 am to have a few belts before getting up on stage and then drinking vodka from a straw on stage so no one would see me. In reading this you don’t have to read any further to figure out that I am addicted. 
      I had average grades in high school and I got lucky.  I always thought that flying and planes were cool so I applied to college and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  They accepted me!  Daytona Beach here I come!  Before I left for college I got a summer job pumping gas for the local flight school. I was told that if I worked hard on the ramp that when I got my flight instructor's certificate I would have a opportunity to flight instruct there. During that summer I meet a guy working there who was going to the same college.  He and I would cut the grass at the tie down area, but before we did he would always show up with some weed and we would get high before we cut the grass. This and drinking after work went on all summer. Then off to Daytona to college where I thought I was pretty cool the first year or two. I starting hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Not only was I drinking and smoking pot, but I started to do cocaine. Right at the end of my sophomore year I was at a party and doing everything! I got behind the wheel and received my second DUI.

     After going to driver’s education for alcohol abuse I was able to drive to and from work and school.  You’re talking to a full blown alcoholic and addict, you think that slowed my partying? No way! Somehow I made it through college but by that time my grades were poor and my addictions were in high gear. I was drinking and doing cocaine three to five days a week. People knew there was something wrong but nobody wanted to confront me.
      When I graduated the job as a flight instructor was waiting and I needed to build hours so I could land the big airline job. I spent about one year at the flight school then got a job flying out in the Hampton’s on Long Island, N.Y.  I was flying as a first officer on a Beech 99.  Boy this was the life: getting paid for something I loved to do!!  I lived by myself in a rented house not to far from the bad area in town. My addictions where stronger then me and I started to spend more and more time in that area.
      In the fall of 1988 the company I was flying for laid me off because of slow flying for the winter. During that short time I moved back with my parents and met a girl. Things were going well except I didn’t have a job. Every time I would drop my girl friend home I would go back out and spend the rest of the night getting high. In December of 1988 I got a call from the largest commuter airline on the east coast. I started training January 23, 1989.  Again I was the luckiest person in the world.  I was training as a first officer in the Shorts 360. I flew the Shorts for about one year then upgraded to captain.  It was great, I was the boss, and I just kept getting deeper and deeper into my addictions. After about a year in the Shorts my company acquired another company and started to buy several Saab 340's. I transitioned to captain in the Saab in 1991.  By that time I was married with a two year old son and a daughter on the way.
      On April 22, 1992 I was on a overnight in Bangor, Maine.  We got in at 2pm, picked up the free rental car, got a 12 pack and then me, the first officer and flight attendant headed to Bar Harbor for the day.  It was great.  We drank all day and night till about 2am and on the drive back to Bangor I got pulled over and was arrested for DUI AGAIN!!!  Number 3!  Folks if this isn’t addiction I don’t know want is.  Anyway, when I was given the opportunity to make a call I called my union. In the next couple of days when I was finally home the union called me and asked me to see a doctor and start going to AA meetings. Guess what? I wasn’t ready!!  But I wanted to keep the company out of it and keep my job so I went to see this Doc and in his letter it says that if I continue my current ways there is no doubt Dana will have troubles in the future. It went in one ear and out the other. I also went to AA for about 2 months and said to myself, “those people are crazy! I’m not a drunk like them.”  That was 1992 and I was to have six more years of pain.
      In March of 1998 my two biggest addictions were getting so bad that I was disappearing for days.  I was spending my time in the crack houses of New York City.  I would bring a case of Johnnie Walker with me because I knew once I went in it would be days before I came out. That last run at the end of March in 1998 was so bad I just stopped calling work and I disappeared for 4 days and no showed 3 trips. On the 4th day in the crack house I looked into a broken mirror and for the first time in my life didn’t like the person I was looking at. That was a defining moment in my life. It was my burning bush.  I know deep in my heart that the God of my understanding looked down and said, “I’ve been here waiting for you to take the right step”. 
      I got up out of the dregs of New York City and drove home clear as a bell. I can’t explain it, again it was a God thing. He didn’t want me to kill myself or anyone else. When I got home I said I was sorry again for the millionth time, but deep in my heart I knew this time I wanted to be sober. I called my chief pilot and he said there was a meeting next Tuesday for me up in Boston. I kind of knew what the meeting was for but believe it or not I was OK with what I expected to hear.  I went to AA everyday while I looked for a treatment center.
      The week flew by and it was time to see the Director of Operations and the Chief Pilot. I wasn’t nervous.  I was sad for what I did but anxious to tell them "I’m going to be OK".  I finally realized that I needed help and that I was an alcoholic and addict. For the first time in my life I went into the meeting and told the truth!  No more hiding, no more skeletons in the closet. After spilling my guts, I told them that it’s OK and that I found a treatment center that I planned to go to. They asked me to leave the room for a minute.  I came back in and with tears in their eyes they crossed out the word "termination" and put "medical leave"! They told me to get the help I needed and they’ll see me back on line soon.
      As I write this it's still a very emotional thing for me to talk about. If it wasn’t for them I don’t know where I would be today. Each day is a gift and that’s how I live today. It’s been 11 years ONE DAY AT A TIME!  The chief pilot that took a chance on me passed away a couple of months ago but I know he can now see that by taking a chance on me he not only saved my life but hundreds of others with chemical dependency. I call it blue collar sobriety.  I can’t tell you everything about sobriety but I know how to stay sober today and if you live the principles of the program and pay it forward everyday you will feel the overwhelming gratitude that I feel. I’m not saying that my life is like living in Disneyland but I wouldn’t change it.  What a wonderful life. This was what God had planned for me. I have been blessed with working with pilots and their families at almost every airline in the USA, several corporations, airlines in the UK, Middle East, the Far East and Australia and it all boils down to ONE thing: I stay sober today.  I plan for the future, but I live for today. When I wake up tomorrow I start out on my knees and ask for another day.

            Dana A.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE

I’ve Been There - Done That

By Daniel S.

            I knew there were problems in my life. I also suspected that the drugs and the alcohol compounded the problems. I was unhappy to the point of despair. Despite the fear of the unknown, I admitted myself to a treatment program for chemical dependency. I wanted no one to know I was there. I resisted telling my family, my company and the FAA. I was scared, which revealed itself as anger. Eventually I told those few people who needed to know. That was my first release of control and my first steps into the world of trust and faith.
            When I returned home it was difficult. The treatment center had been safe but at home I was surrounded by my old haunts, old thoughts and then loneliness set in. I missed the old friends but had to make new ones. I was still out of work and bills piled up.
            In about 8 months from leaving the line, I received my conditional First Class Medical in the mail.  By this time I was a regular at my home group meeting and Birds of a Feather. I humbly celebrated receipt of my FAA medical with my new sober friends. The Company welcomed me back into training and was very supportive. The only people that know what happened to me are the people that I tell. My Union HIMS Representative stood with me throughout the process and continues to support me each step of the way. So far, everyone has been compassionate and encouraging.
            It’s now 3 ½ years since I entered treatment. My life has changed completely. I have respect for myself and others; I live an honest life free from guilt; I am free from the obsession to use; and the bills which I accumulated over the past 4 years have been eliminated. My FAA monitoring period covers 5 years and in the past that would have bothered me, but not now. It’s just one more aid to encourage me to stay clean and sober.  Attending my aftercare group, the Baby Birds, is part of my required monitoring and I experience it as the most beneficial activity in which I participate.

            Thank God I had my job as a pilot to keep my nose to the grind stone.  I love my job....and now my life.

           Daniel S.

KICKING & SCREAMING

     Let me be clear from the beginning that I am referred to by many in our fellowship as a "walk on" but in truth I was a "drag on",  kicking & screaming.  While I have not attended a formal treatment center I have learned much from just being around sober people who have attempted to explain, by example, and show me how to walk the walk.

      It all began back in my hometown of Wheeling, WV where my parents showed me how much fun drinking can be. Constant fights, arguing, dishes being thrown, falling down and throwing up!  I swore I would never be like them, but you know what happened, I was worse.   I found that alcohol could keep me insulated from the person I hated to be around-- myself.  When I drank I could for that brief period of time be someone else in my own mind and that was heartwarming to me.

      After college I joined the Air Force and became an instructor pilot in jets.  At that point it was almost mandatory to display your manhood by getting drunk regularly and I did.  After a five year stint with Uncle Sam which resulted miraculously in an honorable discharge I was hired by a major airline to fly their jets.  I had arrived at my dream job. Good pay and plenty of time off allowed me to fine tune my alcoholic drinking.  I met my dear friend Charlie S. who taught me the finer points of excessive drinking, blackouts and long periods of time missing in action from any decent kind of activity.  Unfortunately for Charlie, who was also a pilot, he became a little too obvious and was sent to treatment and I lost my best drinking buddy. That did not stop me as I found new drinking buddies.  My drinking continued and was getting worse by the day.  It was causing me problems at home and with friends who did not want to be with me in that condition. I was the poster child for a bad drunk.

      One day in 1984 around Mardi Gras I came home drunk again at 11 a.m. and thought that my friend Joe S. may have had the right idea. Joe was one of my last drinking buds because he drank like I did. Unfortunately for Joe he  retired to a motel in Jackson, Ms. with a loaded shot gun and a bottle of Scotch. The shot gun won and Joe took his life.  Drinking had taken me to the same point in my mind.  I knew I had a problem but did not believe there was any hope for me.  For some reason my wife did not share my ideas of suicide and she called my friend Charlie S. who had been sober for five years.  He gathered up a posse of my old drinking buds who had also found sobriety and they descended upon my home one afternoon while I was trying to recover from my latest binge.

     They surrounded me and insisted that I listen to them. They had an unofficial intervention on me and one of the biggest memories I have of that time was when my friends Charlie S,  Paul L. from Gulf Breeze, Florida and a couple of others advised me that they were offering me a life ring that would save me from drowning in alcohol but they would not return again if I chose not to grab the ring.  OK, I thought, I'll play the game until they're gone and then I can get back to normal.  Charlie was like a bull dog and he stayed next to me for the next five days, day and night, and he dragged me to five meetings in three states in three days and that started my journey into sobriety. He insisted that I get a temporary sponsor, do 90 meetings in 90 days, read the Big Book and learn to pray to a higher power.  That was the beginning of my transition from "hopeless" to "hopeful" and it came from a couple of recovering drunks and God.

     This all started on Mar 12, 1984 and I have been trying to follow some simple suggestions ever since and thanks to you and the grace of a loving God I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink.  I write this from the Int'l Convention in San Antonio, Texas and I continue to marvel at all the miracles that I get to see at these great events. I hope to continue my journey in sobriety and each day I am presented great evidence of the promises of AA coming true in my life.

      My wife & I will celebrate 48 years of marriage in December 2010 and she is a shining example of unconditional love.   I learn from her every day because I am now willing.  With God's help I hope to continue to enjoy  sobriety by living one day at a time & trying to live by the principles of love & service. 

      Bill B.

"I COULDN'T EVEN SPELL AA"

A CANADIAN PILOT TELLS HIS STORY

Greetings, my name is Jack F. and I am a alcoholic

        My journey started in a Northern Ontario Gold town as the first son of a hard rock miner.  He in turn was a homesteader and one of a family of 9 brothers whose farm house was burnt down on 4 different occasions with the loss of everything they owned.  He started school at eleven and went to grade 4 before he started working in the mines.  We were not rich, and my parents were party goers but not alcoholics.
         My dad had a huge impact on me growing-up.  He rarely showed affection, taught us not to show emotions/feelings, and gave little validation for things I did well.  However, later on in life I came to believe that he did the best he could from what he had learned growing up in tough times.
         Being busy with sports, music, the fairer sex and suffering from a lack of money, I didn’t start drinking until I joined the Navy and eventually became a naval aviator flying off the HMCS BONAVENTURE.  I was promoted early, and was selected for a 2 year Exchange Tour with the USN flying from 6 different aircraft carriers.  From that point on I would classify myself as a social drinker and for many, many years my drinking was 90% fun and 10% pain.  As it says in the Big Book, there were times that I probably could have stopped but chose not to.  But finally, after many years of increasing drinking, I came to the point that I wanted to stop but couldn’t.  I had crossed over that invisible line never to return to pleasurable and safe drinking.  Alcohol had stopped working for me and I was flying on broken wings.

        I won’t go into my drinking history except to say that I had progressed to a hellish place when I battled the desperate cravings to drink against my flying responsibilities.  I am ashamed to say that King Alcohol frequently won the battle inside my soul.  The original state of feeling good that alcohol had once gave me had been slowly replaced by the feelings of fears, anxiety, guilt, dishonesty, remorse, and isolation.  I couldn’t discuss or tell anyone about my drinking because of negative career implications.  Also, I couldn’t dare believe that my old friend of many years had turned on me.  Time after time I drank to re-capture that initial feeling of well being from my first drink as hard as I tried.  My mind was filled with thoughts of remorse, and the feeling of impending doom.  My health was suffering.  I was anemic, was taking blood pressure medication, my liver was failing and my very high tolerance had fallen to the point of one or two drinks and I would be drunk.  I also went from being a happy drinker to an asshole, especially to my family who loved me and couldn’t fight back.  I was miserable in mind, body and soul,  yet strangely was still able to do my job at a very high level.  No one in authority would confront me about my drinking.  Although I knew I had a problem with alcohol, I didn’t have a solution to my problem even though I had sat through many Drug & Alcohol lectures.  I couldn’t even spell AA, and as a senior supervisor I would send people for treatment because I could see they had an alcohol problem, but again, living in denial I could not see my own problem and how alcohol was affecting my life and those around me.

What Happened

        Because my tolerance had fallen so drastically, I rarely drank at lunch time or in public in case some one would see me drunk.  However, a friend  had given me a quart of PEI moonshine, so one afternoon I went home for lunch to sample this elixir.  I was also the acting Second in Command  of the Base that day.  After a drink of moonshine I returned to work and met with the Base Commander to discuss some things.  I thought/recalled that everything went well.  However, when my boss returned the next day, he called me in and said the words that I had literally been dying to hear:  “Jack, we want you to see the Doctor”.  At the sound of these words I felt like 50,000 pounds had been removed from my back. At last the jig was up.  I had returned to the Base after my one drink and apparently in a blackout proceeded to tell the Base Commander how to run his base in no uncertain terms.  He somehow took exception to this candor.  That became my bottom and started me on my Journey of Recovery.
         Although I “volunteered” for treatment I was still obsessed with the thoughts of drinking when a couple of days later I arrived at the Navy’s Alcohol Treatment Center in Halifax.  However, the night before my treatment started, I had a Spiritual Experience that changed my life.  I believe that while sleeping and without me asking, my Higher Power gave me a moment of clarity to realize that my problem was alcohol, not people, places, or things.  I woke up feeling at peace with myself and the desire to drink left me to this day.

What it’s like now

        During Treatment, I learned that I have a good news, bad news disease called Alcoholism.  If I don’t drink I can live a good,  sober life.  However, if I decide to continue drinking I will die…that simple.  I also have a daily reprieve from my addiction and as long as I choose not to drink today I will go to bed sober and wake up the next day to start the process all over again.  However, it is sometimes necessary to break the day down into hours, minutes and even seconds to get through the day sober.  That is okay.
         The greatest gift I have given myself in life was to allow my Higher Power, which I chose to call God, into my life and surrender to a new way of life without alcohol.  I had to have my ego smashed and admit defeat to King Alcohol. My best thinking couldn’t fix me but my God could and would if I humbly asked him to.  I had to ADMIT, ACCEPT and ACTION myself into a better and sober way of life.
         There is too little space here to cover the many “musts” that I had to do to stay sober but they would include, but not be limited to:  get and read the Big Book of AA,  get a sponsor,  join a Home Group,  do the 12 Steps,  do daily prayers, including the 3rd Step prayer,   meditation, attend regular AA meetings,  get involved in Service Work,  and pass the message of AA on to other suffering Alcoholics.  I have learned that to keep it I have to give it away.

        Today my life and recovery starts and ends with God and in between I incorporate the 12 Steps and Traditions to the best of my ability.  As a result of working the program of AA, the 12 Promises have come true for me especially “ We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves”.  Even strong headed pilots sometimes need a little help.

        God speed fellow spiritual warriors,

                    Jack F.
                     YCD Nest

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

A recovering pilot new to the program wonders if it is too soon to share his story. 
We'll let you decide.

I just read the stories on the BOAF International website, and I am thinking that perhaps it would be pre-mature for me to write my story.  I am only just now approaching 9 months of sobriety, my marriage is still in shambles and heading toward divorce, my 20-year-old daughter is so mad at my wife that she refuses to talk to her or see her, my other three kids are in shell shock, (the only one still home, my 13-year-old son, is spending every other week with me), I'm living at my Dad's house, I still do not have my medical back, and financially I'm at the pointy end of an imminent crash. 
The funny thing is, I'm feeling pretty good even with all of the above.  I'm attending two Birds meetings a week, along with six other regular AA meetings, and I'm taking a speaker meeting and a Big Book meeting to a rehab on a weekly basis.  I'm also doing service at my regular AA meetings (I'm the greeter at the meeting and every day I pick up all the cigarette butts and other trash from the parking lot).  I'm working with my sponsor, talking to him on a daily basis, and I'm on the 8th step.  I meet with a therapist and a pilot monitoring group weekly.  I talk on a daily basis with at least one other AA, and often several, on the phone.  I pray, read AA literature, meditate (at least a little), and pray again every day. 
So I guess the program's working.  Seven months ago, when I was at my emotional bottom with my marriage situation, I was thinking about suicide.  I could not sleep or eat, and I spent most of every day crying.  Today, I'm smiling a majority of the time.  I have a lot of AA friends, and I am learning to love myself, which for me is a big deal, especially when the River of Denial covered the fact that I didn't love myself before I found AA.  I guess you could say it's a series of small but steady Spiritual Awakenings.  I'm aware today of God's hand in my life, and, although I don't always know what His will is or can even begin to understand it, I'm willing today to let Him be at the controls.  Faith, I guess, has taken root.
Anyway, that's all kind of long winded, but I think I will be able to write a much better article later, perhaps once I've at least completed the twelve steps, or, like my sponsor keeps telling me about other things, maybe I should wait at least a year from when I entered AA.

Best regards,

Dan W.

Truth and Consequences

     I took my first drink at the age of eight. This seems like a rather young age but considering the European culture of my family, I never thought this to be unusual. Throughout my childhood family get togethers were comprised of first and second generation, Irish, Polish and Ukrainian happy-go-lucky sorts who chose New Jersey as a home. My sisters, cousins and I enjoyed life in the 80's knowing that someday we would grow up, live out our dreams and the good life as well. Our parents acted silly sometimes after drinking but there were no apparent consequences. The weekends were fun for everyone and nobody wanted them to end.

     Growing up, I always felt unchallenged and bored. I would often do things to solve my curiosity of the unknown. One day when in the eighth grade on a school night, I snuck a half bottle of red wine from my parents liquor collection and downed it. I was a scrawny kid and by the next morning was violently ill. My mother came into my room and didn't see the vomit on the carpet which I artfully concealed with boyhood clutter. She drove me to school and insisted I wasn't going to play sick. I lasted less than two hours into the day and was sent to the nurse's office then home. Much to my surprise I got away with it and suffered my first hangover for two days. At the age of thirteen, I swore I would never drink again and meant it!

     My freshman year of high school I was sent to a Military Academy outside of Philadelphia. It seemed like a place to offload troubled rich kids who lacked discipline. The penalty for drugs was expulsion and if caught drinking you would rather be expelled. I was lucky then and remained that way for years. I dabbled with drugs from time to time into my adult life but never took a liking to them. The next three years of my education was spent in a regular high school with occasional parties and drinking excursions to the Jersey Shore during school days. I was a normal teen thinking booze in moderation was legal, excepted by society and encouraged by peers.

     At the age of eighteen, I enlisted into the Army. The drinking age was debatable, either 18 or 21. It never really matter because I initially had clerical job that included making military ID's. I thought I was brilliant until I got into trouble for buying booze for my fellow soldiers who were under age. If I would have given my ID with my correct birth date on it, I would have been spared additional grief. The military and civilian authorities around bases were sympathetic those days and it wasn't really a consequence, just bad luck. During university and my early work years there were more bad luck episodes like this. There was always a way out of trouble if I sought it.

     In AA meetings and literature there is reference to crossing an “invisible line. “ This is when someone changes into being an alcoholic. I can't pinpoint exactly when I crossed the line. In my late twenties, I found myself in a miserable marriage, working a job I hated and living in place with very cold weather which I despised.  Looking back it is easy to see that my problems had simple solutions but found an easier way to cope with them by using alcohol to defer them to a later time or until they just went away someday. I had become lazy in coping with life.

     This adopted coping mechanism carried into my flying career and came with a price. I got fired from one job, quit before terminated by another and eventually found myself at one that decided to fix me. My introduction to recovery began five years before my last drink. I didn't want to believe I was an alcoholic but by now realized that one debacle after another had to be more than bad luck. I am an airline pilot and fly airplanes damn it!  The possibility of being an alcoholic is not acceptable to me!  Perhaps I can learn how to control my drinking from other pilots and not do AA with the real alcoholics.

     Then came a time of desperation that required immediate action. I was being investigated for a drinking episode that involved work so I finally wandered into a Birds of A Feather meeting looking for an escape. Many of the stories told were painfully similar to mine but still believed that I was not that far gone. If I needed a solution of abstinence, this would be the answer.  Sure, I was an alcoholic but not like them!  I quit my present job which I made another mess of to avoid a second termination. I managed to get a good job in Europe and worked there for a couple of years. During this time I crossed another invisible line. Things I promised myself that would never happen happened and the stories heard in those Birds meetings gradually became my own.

     I didn't have any problems with my European airline but resented them for the terms and conditions of my upgrade so then decided to look for another job and found one with a reputable US carrier. I started to have problems at home. For a pilot who is an alcoholic, his job and flying is coveted and is often the last thing he will jeopardize. Coincidentally, one of the fellows who I met at those meetings years before works for my new airline and is involved in it's recovery community. The aviation world is small and my past finally came back to haunt me. This time it was going to be different. I intended not to get drunk with my colleagues and create a facade of abstinence to keep the recovery people/HIMS Committee at my airline off my case. I would sometimes have a drink or two with my crew but would go back to my room and have some more.

     I thought I knew enough about alcoholism that I could contain, control and compensate by using drinking time-lines, exercise, sleeping aids and etc. The truth is that alcoholism is a progressive illness and sometimes very slow in nature. Over two years went by with no problems at work at all however my personal life was falling apart at an alarming rate. On an overnight, I showed up in a hotel lobby for a trip not intoxicated but terribly wrecked from a binge. I did not know at the time that the captain I was paired with recovered from alcohol through help of our airline. He recognized I had a problem. I could have been fired but was given a generous opportunity to recover instead.

     My actual recovery started with an evaluation from a company doctor who drew some blood. It was discovered that my liver GGT was high and alcohol was detected in my blood from the night before. One might think that it is pretty stupid to drink the day before an alcohol evaluation but this is how I coped with fear and believed my liver could process a few drinks out in ten hours. Hours after the evaluation, I received a call from our HIMS Committee Chairman with the results of my evaluation. I was expecting this call of doom and knew this was one mess I could not get out of. By now, I was an experienced escape artist when it came to trouble but for the first time in my life there was no way out. It was time gave up the fight to keep drinking and finally admit defeat.

     The next day I was given a plane ticket to treatment. This was the start of learning how to approach life's problems with logic rather than chemicals. A needed basic skill that had eroded over the years. It took time to realize that problems I would drink over caused me alcohol induced problems that I remedied by drinking more and more to cope. It's been over two years since I was freed from what seemed like a death spiral and could never even imagine then how good life could be today.

     Today I remain abstinent by help I received by others. I would not try to do it on my own even if I could. It is so much easier and enjoyable to quit drinking with a little help.

Richard P.
Dec 2011

Like None Of It Ever Happened

     Being from a larger family has its good and bad points as does anything short of a tooth ache. I grew up fourth of five kids which was good when I wanted to fly under the radar but not great when I wanted to be noticed. We had a nice house, nice cars, good food, and I had clothes to wear. (I rarely wore anything that my older brother hadn’t worn first but it was fine by me). My parents loved me as did my siblings and we had a very nice life. My father was my favorite person in the world, he could fix anything and he knew everything.  When it came to bragging about dads in the school yard, I had it easy, my dad was a pilot. That was like throwing down four aces. So even though I missed my dad often as he was almost always away, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. More than anything I wanted to be close to my father, I wanted to be exactly like him.
     The breath from my nose would steam up the window of my bedroom as I would stand against it at night and scan the sky for lights. Behind the house jets would line up in trail for PHL. Later in life I would come to find that this was the pattern for arrival to PHL runway 27L.  As the lights would pass from right to left across the sky between the large dogwood trees I would count them and make up stories as to where they were from and who was on them, but mostly I would wonder if one was my dad.  As little as I knew about these lights that flew across the sky at night, I knew that they were special and the people on them were more special than a little boy with a 9 o’clock bed time. I was down here wishing I was up there with my dad and the special people in the sky.
     So as time went on I lived airplanes and would ask my father questions about everything and he, being a pilot, would talk for hours about planes. We became close over talking about this stuff. My siblings were all academic stand outs, I was the one who got B’s. But I didn’t care about grades, I was going to be a pilot and work at my father’s air charter company. He and his business partner had a Charter company since the mid-1960s. It had always been a modest little company but it grew a great deal in the 70s and 80s. They had a flight school, maintenance hangar and a charter company with piston twins, turbo-props and even jets. I figured I could stay there for life. That was the dream.

     Fast forward.

    By the age of 22, I had my Commercial Multi-engine License with an Instrument rating and my CFI.  And I was finishing up college because my parents made me get a degree for my own good. Full time school, full time work, and flying lessons kept me too busy to party or even socialize between the ages of 16 and 22.  With 4 years of working at my father’s company as a line guy under my belt he let me start giving flight instruction. He made me earn everything, I even had to pay for my flying lessons like everyone else.  Plus I was still pumping fuel and towing/washing planes between lessons. I had nowhere else to be anyway. That was fair and he didn’t give me any breaks because he never wanted anyone to say that I was given anything. But even though I paid as much for lessons and worked there overnights by myself year round, everyone still said that my dad gave me my job. So much for that idea.
     In time, I was in the right seat of a King Air 200. It was great, I had a degree and a job as a pilot so it was all going to be good now. At 24 I was working the line, instructing, and flying charter twenty some days a month. At this point I still had never tasted alcohol in my life, smoked a cigarette or anything that people smoked. But most importantly, I was flying with my dad. I was a light in the night time sky and all the missed youth was worth it. 
     At 26 I was a Captain in turbo-props, piston twins also, and beyond my greatest dreams, a Learjet co-pilot. I was flying all over the country and beyond.  Things were going great. So I got married and started having a real life. I was happy. I did everything people told me to do and it all worked.
     I flew with my father for the last time in January of 1997. He was 62 and he had cancer. I was the Director of Operations at his company by this point. I was trying to keep my home, the company and my father’s home together and I still never drank alcohol. In July my father past away. My life was changed forever. My father’s business partner threw me out of the company because his wife said it was best. So I found a new job flying a jet for a family elsewhere.  That plane was always broken and I was away 15 days at a time, this was hard on my marriage.
     The airlines seemed like a better idea so I got a job with a good regional. It was a nice job and my wife liked the travel benefits a great deal. Things were ok again.  For a bit anyway. Then 9/11 happened and my airline was having financial difficulties and things were not as good. I was on reserve and not making enough money. My wife hated my career choice at this point.  At the age of 33, on the road and my wife at home angry, I went to the bar with my crew and had a few beers. I felt light spirited and cheery for the first time in years.
     My wife convinced me to change careers, so I did just that and went to work in an office. I discovered happy hour. I was drinking two or three times a week. This life wasn’t for me so I went back to flying after 9 months of office work. I took a job as a chief pilot at a charter company and quit drinking.
     Three years later I was Director of Operations at work, my marriage was functional at best and my wife was pregnant. My child was born and I just did two things, work or watch my baby. I had no idea my wife had started an affair with her boss. I was continuously told that I didn’t make enough, our cute little, stone house was now too small. Nothing about me was any good.
     I ended up divorced. Flew charter for years after. Drinking became a common thing for me. I drank most days and began to hate my life like no one should. I quit flying because my drinking was getting even worse and I thought a change was the answer. A new job, a new life, something. After months of not finding any kind of job outside of aviation, I went to work at a large training company and began teaching pilots. I quit drinking again. This lasted 4 months. Things were no different, my ex was remarried, I saw my daughter 2 or 3 times a month, I was alone all of the time at that point.  And that job was a new low, I found myself doing whatever management told me to do and just make the paperwork look right. I started drinking again and just gave up on caring about anything. Until one day I forgot that I was supposed to work and I was drinking in a hotel room next door. So I took a shower, got dressed and walked to the training center. It wasn’t too long before a co-worker figured it out.
     The rest of the story is nothing surprising. I was asked to surrender my license and medical and I did. 30 years and 16300 hours with no incidents or accidents, 78 check rides and never failed one, DOO of 2 companies, Chief Pilot of 2 companies, designated check airman at 2 companies and now it is like none of it ever happened. I still look at the lights in the sky and miss my father.

Michael C.

I’ve Got This…

I walked out of rehab thinking “now you just have to get back to work and everything will be fine.” The problem was that I still had part of a bottle of vodka in the trunk of my car, and there was no one who could stop me from drinking it. So, like a good alcoholic, about 25 days sober, I took a swig. Thus began my last days of drinking. Less than a week later I showed up to my first company HIMS meeting still drunk from drinking the night before and blew a .06 on the soberlink. I thought I’d lost it all right then and there. As shitty as I felt in that moment, thinking I had hit rock bottom, the worst was yet to come…

Let’s Go Back
My drinking didn’t really start until I was in college. Around my junior year the parties started to ramp up, and so did the drinking. I remember the euphoric feeling I would get and how good it felt just to let loose. As the drinking became more and more prevalent, I took notice of how much my drinking had increased and decided that it was time to quit before I fell too far down the rabbit hole. See my parents had warned me repeatedly that alcoholism ran in our family and I’d be more susceptible to succumb to it. I think it was about a 3-month time frame where I would say “no thanks. I don’t drink. I feel like I crave it too much.” Looking back on it it’s amazing not only how much wisdom I had back then, and at the same time how completely full of shit I was. I didn’t believe for a minute that I’d stopped drinking forever. I thought if I’d give it up for a time then all would be good, and I could enjoy drinking again. Sure enough I was drinking and partying again during my last year (like I said… completely full of shit).
After college the drinking tapered off a bit when I got my first job as an airline pilot. I’d have a drink with my crew on an overnight, and enjoy a few during my days off, but nothing substantial until I upgraded to Captain and lived alone for the first time. That’s when everything started to go sideways. That led to consuming much more alcohol than I ever intended or realized. When I moved into a new place with roommates, I found myself drinking less, but still on a daily basis. It was during this time that I met my wife. At the time we both enjoyed partying and having a good time, and so she didn’t have any issue with me having a glass of bourbon every evening. That eventually led to more drinking, and about a year later the first warning sign.
I remember the first time she called me on my drinking in excess, and me blowing her off like it was no big deal. She asked if I needed anything while she was out, and I asked her to pick me up a bottle of Jack Daniels. She said, “you go through it so fast!” To which I replied, “Then don’t worry about it.” I proceeded to procure a bottle myself later on. That was almost 10 years ago now, and my first giant red flag that I completely ignored. About a year later I started hiding alcohol from her, and that was the where the snowball really gained momentum and grew. Over the next several years my drinking was in excess (blackouts) on almost a daily basis, and 90% of it was in secret so that (I thought) no one would know about it. I’d find out later that
most of my family knew I drank way too much, and my wife knew that I hid alcohol from her. If any of them had known the true extent of it though there would have been an intervention.
I was hired with my current airline in October of 2015. By that point my drinking had gotten so bad that I would get the shakes if I didn’t have a drink every 2-3 hours. I would wake up hung over every day at home, and still drunk more often than not. Having to choke down a drink to take the edge off while trying to not throw it back up at the same time. About 6 months in, while still on probation, I found that I’d backed myself into a corner. I had exhausted our pre-allotted sick time and was supposed to start a 4-day trip that afternoon. The problem was that I could tell I was going to be shaking violently by mid-afternoon if I didn’t have a drink, and if I did, I’d be flying while intoxicated. So far, I’d managed to keep myself out of legal trouble over my years of drinking, but my luck would run out eventually. I called my old man in tears and said “I don’t know what to do. I need help.” The next thing I knew I was on the phone with our EAP rep and was in the HIMS program. It was off to rehab for me. That was my first stint in rehab. 25 days of getting sober and having the wrong mentality. Which brings us to the part where this story began and leads into where I hit rock bottom.

Rock Bottom
After I blew a positive on the soberlink I thought my life was over. I fully expected to be fired, divorced and drinking myself to death all within about a month’s time. I got a curve ball thrown at me though when my Chief Pilot told me he was going to give me another chance to get the help I needed, and my job was still secure. That was the last thing I expected, but it changed everything. I drove home from that meeting trying to figure out how I had ended up where I was. The truth was it didn’t matter. I was there, and now I had to get my head screwed on straight. Here’s the kicker though… my wife had no idea I’d been drinking since I got home from rehab that week.
I walked into my house trying to figure out a way to be honest with my wife and tell her that despite the 25 days I’d been gone getting sober, it was all for naught. There really wasn’t any way to explain it, so I just opened up with the best way I thought possible. I started off by saying my job was still secure, but that I’d drank again and was going to have to do another stint in rehab. Her words to this day are still the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced: “I’m not threatening you, but if you decide to drink again, and end up in jail or lose your job I will take the dog and leave.” It was in that moment that I hit rock bottom. It was then that I made the decision to stay sober, no matter the cost. A week later and I was on my way to rehab again.

Sobriety
The next 45 days were by far the best and worst of my life. When I met my counselor and told him “I want you to make me as uncomfortable as humanly possible while I’m in your care” he looked at me like I had 3 heads and said, “Jason, that’s not what we do here.” I told him “You don’t understand, sir. During my last rehab I didn’t feel uncomfortable even once. If something doesn’t change, I’m going to lose everything.” He paused for a minute and simply said “I think I understand. Get ready.” It was an incredibly painful, but enlightening period. I found and closed mental wounds that I never wanted to see again, and others I didn’t know were even there.
My first year out of rehab was rough. I had to re-learn how to live life. I took in all the advice I could get and put to into place what worked for me. Not all of the advice I got worked, but eventually I learned how to filter out the bad and take in the good. I got a great sponsor (who I still have today) and started working the steps. By the time I got my medical back I’d been out of work for nearly a year. And I could tell how much my mentality had shifted. I was very eager to get back in the flight deck, but I was also still a bit nervous on handling overnights on my own. Luckily the support group I had was excellent and I put the program I had built up to good use. It ended up being a non-issue, and simply saying “I don’t drink” was a game changer. I found simply being open about being in recovery was the best thing I could possibly do, and I didn’t care what others thought about me. Amazing how that works: talking about being in recovery actually helping! Ha!
It’s amazing how much life has changed for me since I quit drinking. Being able to think coherently, and not be fuzzy all the time is a complete game-changer in itself. But life is just better in every aspect. My marriage is much better now that I’m not lying all the time. Our finances are finally in the black now that I’m not spending all our extra cash on alcohol (and other alcohol-induced purchases). I’m in much better shape since I’ve quit drinking and started working out again. I also sleep a lot better.
To this day being able to say “I don’t drink” is one of the greatest things that I can say with pride!

Jason G.