October 17, 2007
The Salvation Army staff woke us up at 5am because everyone had to be out of the building by 6am, my first thought was, if sober people had to get up at this time of day, I prefer drinking. I took care of business, got dressed, went to the kitchen took a cup of coffee and a pill (Librium). I felt a little nausea, had a headache and the shakes, the doughnuts did not appeal to me, off the three of us went to the AA meeting around the corner where the VA would pick us up at 8am.
The meeting started at 7am, with about 20 different
people from the previous meeting, thinking to myself,
I thought, a lot of drunks and druggies in this town,
that made me feel good for some reason, anyway the
same ritual as the day before and then the hands went
up. Some people that had been sober for sometime,
telling how good it felt, a lady crying about losing her
job and she had kids to feed and one guy in the Veteran's
group with us, telling the group this was his third
attempt at trying to live a sober life. My thoughts
about these people where, glad you're feeling good,
look for another job lady and for the veteran I thought
he must have been a real winner in the Army, God the
poor Army and now the Veteran's Administration. A
lot of other sharing went on, but my attention span
is not the greatest at this time of the morning, I need
a drink to get it to focus and I still feel, like I had
been run over by a tank.
True to his word, Mike the Va guy picks us up in a van at 8am as promised, I was surprised, government
workers are never on time, why should they, the
pay check is always there, on time or not, we head for the building on 13th street, we arrive and I see my car is still there, that's a good thing. Next to the classroom, there is a small kitchen full of goodies, coffee and juice. I take a coffee and a banana, go to the classroom and sit, all those other guys think they are at a feast or have not eaten in months and load up and with all the pushing and shoving its hard to believe they were in the military at one time, must of been in the Navy or Army surely not the Marines
and the Air Force I always considered a pansy group that drew discomfort pay, sorry, no not really.
Classes start with us all taking a blow test, which
everyone passed, we are now eight guys. We were
all given a journal, a Big Book, Twelve Step Book,
a Prayer of the Day Book, a pamphlet explaining the
program and other things including a bag to carry
all this stuff in, they also had toilet articles and
clothes for the guys that needed them. My esteem
for Mike grew because of the way he handled this
task by making the guys in need, comfortable in
receiving these things, with the statement, “
you guys are veterans and deserve this from your
grateful country.” what seemed odd to me, was my
thinking, I joined the Marine Corps in 1961 and
stayed in until 1974 including Vietnam. I joined
voluntarily, drew a pay check, did a job and did
not expect anything for this service, I was the
grateful one, I had Veteran's benefits, so his take
on it, was new to me and sounded good.
The day continued until noon, then another AA
meeting, some more classroom work and now
I could drive my own car back and forth, but still
had that 6pm curfew at the Salvation Army.
We went to another AA meeting that night but
still feeling bad, I was not focused on it, when
it was over I drove back to the Salvation Army,
took a few more pills and went to bed.
Author: Alden Morrison
