Seaman Chris's story
Chris here, alcoholic ,sober today through the grace of God and AA.When I was a schoolboy I hated teachers , authority and soldiers as my country, at this time, was occupied by the golden youth of Germany. Today I'm sure lots of them would rather have been at home than in my country, but that is today. When I, as a 13 year, old got out of school by giving them notice I got a job as delivery boy. I delivered cakes and my friend delivered booze so I gave him cake and he got me booze.
That went on to I went to sea as a 15 year old. By then (15 going on 35) I sailed with hard-nosed seaman who had seen mates and themselves torpedoed during the war and who knew the only way to dull the memories was booze and lots of it. I was in my element. I adored these hardcases. I even threw out my belly so it looked like I had a beerbelly too! Pathetic, I see today but for me it was reality then. I drank with them, I fought with them I got locked up with them. At 15 years old, in Panama, I pretended I had apendicitis. I fooled the doctor and got it taken out, just because I wanted to get off the ship and go to the States.
I sailed out of New York for 10 years, over the whole free world sampling the great spirit of the world as monkey whisky in Bangkok ,sandpaper (poor imitation of gin) in the Phillipines junglejuice in Afrika and horticultural tobacco in Sierra Leone. In one ship we had PXstores for the US army in Morrocco some of it was aftershave lotion. A few crates of them took us from Norfolk in US to Kenitra in Morrocco. They were dynamite, down wind it was hell , eyes like roadmaps. Woke up drunk in a plane over Paris en route to Copenhagen. I didn't even know I had paid of the ship in Casablanca.
I got arrested in the airport in Copenhagen and taken to boothcamp so was private S. I had a pocket full of money and the Navy was stupid enough to let me out for weekend after 6 weeks. I stretched the weekend to 29 days and got 30 days in their small hotel with one door and one window up high with ironlace. In there I made 64 thousand clothespegs that got exported to Canada. If any Canucs has ever bought a packet of clothespegs in 1963 with a name and adress in Denmark,it was me.
I was thrown out of the Navy and after 1 year got called up again and this time finished the national service with a few unfortunate incidents... like them sending down divers to look for me in the harbour when in fact I had sneaked out to the pub. Seven days after being released from Navy I left Denmark in a ship for Australia via South America. That is when the fun started. I found a paradise for boozers in the Aussie ships. By 1969 I was forced to quit drinking as I nearly got blacklisted on the coast for drinking and fighting. That lasted 18 month when I took the first drink and drunk. That went on until feb 1978 when I threw in, or should say, the towel was thrown in for me. I didnt realise I just let the cat in to the canary cage.
At 18 months sober I planned a murder. I'd had enough of my wife she was the problem. I planned it at 2am with her sleeping peacefully next to me. That shook me up and AA found me, a nut with a head running at 100 miles an hr with the most crazy thoughts that even scared me. It came in the form of a scotsman that had been as loony as me and he understood my woes. I went to my second
meeting and who but Sailor Tom should be there. We had sailed together in 1968 and when I asked him why he hadn't told me he was in AA then he just said "you weren't ready then." How right he was. I had to lick the bottom before I was licked.Since then through the 12 steps and my understanding of the program that has been given to me by a lot of oldtimer ,one day at a time, I have become a better person, the kind of person even I can like. Mothers usually warn their kid of the stranger danger. My mother warned strangers of me. That is what I was like. Today I have a family that loves me and I understand what it is to love them , a change for sure and a change I am still working on for the betterment of those around me.
It is nice to revisit my old life and compare it to today. What more can I say but thanks to AA to
God and you guys who have been instrumental in all this love in AA.
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