CHAPTER 1

My Family

Born in 1948, I was the youngest of four boys in an upper-middle-classfamily. This was a few years after the end of World War II.Neither of my parents ever smoked, drank alcohol, or used mood-alteringdrugs.

If genetics plays a role in addiction, then I must look at both of mygrandfathers. My mom told me stories about her father's escapadeswhen he drank. He was an unpredictable, angry, and malicious drunk.He had seven children, and five went on to drink excessively as adults.He was a functional alcoholic, and he was licensed as a dentist and alawyer. He was also a U. S. representative in Washington DC. He gotsober in his fifties and stayed that way until he died. I only knew himduring his sober years and remember him as a kind and loving man.

My mom, therefore, grew up as a child of an alcoholic and becamean adult child of an alcoholic. I remember her as an extremely anxiousperson who had little peace or contentment. She was very opinionatedand argumentative. Many times throughout my lifetime, she arguedwith my dad, my brothers, her sisters, and me. She was religious andattended church regularly. She knew the Bible well enough that shecould quote many verses from it. I loved my mom, and I believe she didthe best she could with what she had even though her childhood withan alcoholic father had affected her emotionally.

My dad's father was also an alcoholic. He drove a cab for a living,and I only saw him three or so times in my childhood. He did not raisemy dad. My dad was raised by stepparents, whom I had the pleasure ofvisiting several times. They were good and kind people who did a greatjob raising my dad. My father was a prince of a man. I never saw himsmoke, drink alcohol, physically harm anyone, or argue with anyoneother than my mom, and that only happened rarely. He never flirtedwith other women or had any affairs. I never heard him cuss or telldirty jokes. He was meek and unpretentious. He spent a lot of qualitytime with me. One of my favorite childhood memories is of beingnestled under his arm and talking while we watched TV together in aneasy chair. I felt loved and safe. One example of my dad's integrity tookplace when he managed a little league team I played on. Even though Iwas a good pitcher, there was a one-armed boy who was a better pitcherthan me. The other pitcher began the game, while I sat the bench andwatched. My dad only put me in to pitch if the first-string boy ran intodifficulties. I respected my dad for not favoring me over the betterplayer. Even though he set this good example, I chose to use drugsinstead of following his lead.

When my dad died, I could hardly believe the crowd of people thatcame to the funeral to pay their respects. He had touched many people'slives. He was truly a great man and one of the most humble people Ihave ever known.

There was some physical violence in my immediate family home asI grew up. I remember being awakened in the night to hear yelling andthe loud thump of someone hitting the wall with their body, buttingheads, and throwing punches. I stepped out of my bedroom and lookeddown the hall to see one of my brothers fighting with my dad. Thefighting stopped, and I returned to my bed. I thought every familysettled differences that way.

When I was too young to remember witnessing it, someone in thefamily shot a .22 rifle over my dad's head and through the kitchen wall.The hole had to be filled in and painted over. One of my brothers toldme about this episode, but it was never mentioned by anyone in thefamily again.

My older three brothers moved out while I was still young. Myoldest brother became a dentist and tried working in private practicefor a while. It was not his cup of tea, so he returned to school andearned a master's degree in public health. Throughout his career, hehas held many esteemed jobs in public-health dentistry. His final jobwas director of the National AIDS Hotline at the CDC in Atlanta.Sometimes I wonder how far I would have gone in dentistry had I neverused drugs.

My relationship with this brother was almost nonexistent during myusing days. When I got clean, we reunited with each other, and at presentwe have a good, loving relationship. He supported me emotionally whileI was in treatment. He and I talked frequently, and he even drove somedistance to attend family treatment groups.

My second-oldest brother, who is ten years older than me, took memany places when I was a child. We went to the zoo, on picnics, andto other fun things. Out of anyone in my family, I felt closest to himemotionally. He also became a dentist. After he married his first wife, Iwould visit him and his wife periodically.

At the time of this writing, my brother and I have been estrangedfor over a year due to his resentments toward me about my mom's laterlife and the settlement of her estate after she passed.

My next oldest brother was seven years my senior. He experiencedmany problems in his life, from his teenage years up to his death in anauto accident at age forty-seven. He was bullied in high school, andhis drug use began with sniffing glue. From there, he experimentedwith different drugs. In his later life, he mainlined using Ritalin, adrug predominantly abused by African Americans. He showed me aletter that he typed up that included a fake doctor's letterhead. Thisletter explained that my brother was diagnosed with narcolepsy; thetreatment for this condition is large doses of Ritalin. In his later years,his routine consisted of driving to doctor offices and pharmacies in DesMoines, St. Louis, and Tulsa to stock up on Ritalin. He made this loopevery two weeks. He sold part of his stash and shot up the remainder.He dealt Ritalin to many criminal types.

For some reason, he chose to live in predominantly blackcommunities. During part of his life, he was a pimp with several blackprostitutes. When I was about twenty-five, I remember drinking beersand smoking pot with my brother and a black uniformed police officer.Then my brother took me to see a black prostitute nicknamed "Touches,"and I did my thing for free. My brother had a black girlfriend for years,named Brenda, and he had a biracial son from that relationship. Brendaand this child lived in the projects, and my brother took me alongseveral times when he visited them. The boy called my brother "DaddyTom."

I remember the night I was awakened by a phone call from anOklahoma state trooper who told me that my brother had been killedin an auto accident on the turnpike to Tulsa. He had run down anembankment and was thrown out of his car. A few days later I calledthe Oklahoma trooper headquarters and the trooper who I spoke withread from the report that the cause of death was that the top of hisskull was knocked off, and the cerebral spinal fluid had leaked out. Thetrooper said that initially they had investigated it as a homicide andthen switched their call to an auto accident. However, I believe to thisday that it was a homicide.

My brother had picked up two black girls in St. Louis on his biweeklyrun, and these girls gave their story to the state troopers. By theiraccount, the three of them had taken cocaine. They said my brotherwas driving, and when he wouldn't pull over to the shoulder, one of thegirls grabbed the steering wheel and tried to force him to pull over. Theylost control and crashed.

Several details in this story didn't add up. First, my brother hadonce tried cocaine with me and said he didn't like the way it made himfeel. Second, there were no pills in the car, even though he had alreadybeen in Des Moines and St. Louis. Third, neither girl had a scratch onher body, compared with my brother being ejected and killed. Last, mybrother always wore expensive rings every time I saw him, and no ringswere found on his body. I went down to his apartment in Kansas Citythe day after the state trooper called me, and it was cleaned out eventhough the landlord said he still lived there.

I did not investigate further because I felt it might put my own lifein jeopardy.

I only saw this brother a couple of times a year because we were bothso busy pursuing our addictions. His first and only marriage, to his highschool sweetheart, ended in divorce early in his addiction. His oldestdaughter didn't come to his funeral. When I notified her of her dad'sdeath, she said, "They can bury him in Potter's field, for all I care." Thisis another example of the havoc addiction causes in families.

My daughter, Desri, came during my second marriage. She was myfirst and, as it turns out, only child. I was in the delivery room at herbirth, and I was elated when I saw her emerge from the birth canal.Because she aspirated some of the amniotic fluid during birth, shewas not breathing or making any sounds. My elation quickly turnedto panic. The doctor looked anxious and began pinching, patting, andmoving her legs and arms around, trying to get a response. For a minuteand a half, the doctor tried frantically to help her breathe or cry. Justwhen I was losing all hope, she began to move and cry. I was overjoyed.The medical team placed her in an incubator, where she lived for herfirst ten days. She steadily improved, and we took her home. She hardlyever cried, and when she did, it was a quiet, subdued cry that only lastedfor a short time.

I was a drug abuser when Desri was born. My daughter's mom andI divorced when she was three. She had a very difficult life, and shealso began using. She lived with her mom at first, but at age eleven, shedecided to move in with me. At this time, I was using powdered cocainedaily. Desri ran away from home several times. When I found her andbrought her home, I would beat her with a belt, and this left welts onher butt and legs. I still deal with the shame I feel from giving her aseries of beatings. Because of the behaviors Desri's mother and I had,our daughter couldn't live with either of us. She chose to live out in theworld on her own at age fourteen. She has two sons that she raised byherself, and she did a great job.

At age sixteen, she passed the GED test. She went on to communitycollege and is now completing a degree in psychology at UMKC. Lastsemester, she was on the dean's list. I am very proud of what she hasaccomplished in the face of adversity. She has discussed her goals withme, regarding her plans to work in the field of psychology, helpingothers. She is an amazing woman.

My relationship with my daughter was filled with mental andphysical abuse during my active addiction. Since I got clean and overthe sixteen years of my sobriety, we have grown closer and developeda loving relationship in spite of the turmoil of our past. She has alsostopped using and has a bright future ahead of her.

CHAPTER 2

My Story

And now the story turns to me. I don't recall ever being hugged byanyone in my family except my dad. I was never told "I love you"by anyone in my family. I never saw my mom and dad hug or kiss eachother or any of my brothers. Because this was the example set for me,it is very difficult for me to show affection to my wife or daughter eventoday.

I learned at a very young age that performing well in academics, tapdancing, playing my trumpet, or singing gave my mom bragging rights,and whenever I heard her bragging about me, it made me feel as if sheloved me. I became a high achiever in all that I attempted, receivingonly the highest grades in elementary and high school. My mom paidme to get straight As, and so I used my intellect to get something thatfelt like love.

I began tap dancing lessons at age three and continued through ageten. I danced and sang at the Starlight Theatre, which seated thousandsof people in an outdoor venue, at age ten. I was chosen out of hundredsof kids who tried out, and I was paid professionally. They called me thenext year for me to repeat the performances, but I declined, and mydancing career ended there.

In my seventh-grade year, I was elected student body president andpresided over the meetings weekly.

I took trumpet lessons for about ten years and again excelled. Inhigh school, I auditioned and was chosen to play in the all-city orchestraand the all-city band. I gave up playing after my senior year.

I took algebra my eighth-grade year. I saw that I had a knack formath, and I enjoyed learning math and science. My senior year in highschool, I took three advanced courses; namely, college math, second-yearchemistry, and third-year Spanish. On the four-point grading scale,straight As netted the student a four-point GPA. However, the advancedcourses that I took gave me two bars over the grade so that my A wasworth six points. My GPA for my senior year was five-point-zero; thus,my intellect was my strength.

I ran track during my sophomore year and excelled. I participated incross-country races and ran the mile in the regular track season. I wasthe fastest in the interscholastic league, which included all of the highschools in Kansas City. For the first year of track, my school requiredme to be on the junior varsity team, even though I was faster than anyrunner on the varsity team. I was only beat one time that year, barely, inthe all-city meet, in which runners from the entire city competed.

My success at running got me some notoriety among my fellowstudents. The school yearbook included pictures of me and an articleabout my running.

Even with all my successes in high school, I felt different than myschoolmates. For some reason, I lacked self-esteem. I was not one of thepopular kids.

I felt very shy around girls and only dated twice, in a group setting,before I became interested in the girl who became my first wife. The firstdate was with a girl who lived up the street from me. We went to a BoyScout roller-skating party. My second date was with a girl who threwa party at her house for a dozen schoolmates. I went to her house thenight of her party. I remember trying to talk with her in her backyard,but I was at a loss for words. I felt very awkward as I tried to kiss her butdidn't know how. I had no sexual feelings toward her. I was sixteen, andmy only sexual experience until then was with masturbation.

My best friend through elementary school and high school wasa neighbor. We did many mischievous deeds together as kids. As webecame teenagers, we graduated to criminal acts. Once, we hot-wireda car, stole it, and parked it in the woods close to where we lived. Wedisassembled the motor and sold the parts. I had several of those partslaying in plain view in my basement, but my parents never asked meabout them.

When we were young, this friend and I began smoking cigarettes,and one time we inserted the wick of an M80 firecracker into a cigarette,lit the cigarette, and placed it under a seat in the Velvet Freeze ice-creamparlor. We went across the street and waited to see the excitement whenit exploded.

My friend and I also used to light cherry bombs and lob them uphigh to explode near the first huge hump in the roller coaster to scarethe riders at the amusement park located close to where we lived.

My dad had a Shopsmith woodworking machine in our basementwith a lathe. I ground off the edges of pennies so they would be the sizeof a dime. I took these "dimes" to the coin changer in the laundromat.I deposited them to get two nickels for each.

Once, when my mom and dad were away for a weekend, my friendand I took all the copper pipes that my dad had left over after he hadreplaced some of the plumbing at my house. We brought the copper toa scrap metal place and sold it for money to enjoy our weekend.

At the time, I never considered that there were victims in theseactivities. I liked the thrill of the moment and the excitement of gettingaway with something illegal. This led to cheating in school and illegaldrug use later. The aforementioned pranks and illegal acts are just a fewexamples of my long history of acting out.

Similar to me as a person, my family had two different personas.One persona was that we were the perfect, Leave it to Beaver type offamily outside of the house. The other persona was that we were a verydysfunctional family inside the house. A lot of arguing and violencewent on. My mom wore the pants and was the center of attention.

I also had two faces. My mom and dad thought I was the perfect son.I attended church service and Sunday school with them every week. Iwas an altar boy; I attended confirmation class and joined the churchas a young teenager. I was never caught lying to my parents or doinganything else bad. As mentioned previously, my grades in school werealways great. I was a hard worker; I mowed yards and shoveled snow tomake money before I turned sixteen and later got a steady part-time jobat Safeway as a sacker.

At eighteen, I married my high school sweetheart. That lasted a yearand a half. We divorced because of infidelity. We were both guilty ofhaving extramarital affairs. I felt sad and disillusioned. I thought, Howcan this happen to me? I was an egomaniac with an inferiority complex,and this failure at marriage was a blow to my self-esteem.