Originally Posted by
rpcrowe
I have not had a drink since 1984. My first wife had come down with cancer. She was always adamant about not riding in a car with me if I had even one drink and I never wanted having a drink to prevent me from driving her to the hospital or doctor whenever she needed.
A few weeks after I made that decision, I was driving home along a wooded road in the failing light of the evening. A young boy rode his bike out of a shadowed driveway and I almost hit him. I realized
1. if I had had a few drinks, my reflexes might not have been fast enough to stop in time
and
2. if I had hit him, even though it was his fault, alcohol on my breath would have made me responsible.
That really shook me to the bone and I never drank again!
A few years later, I attended the Navy Institute of Substance Abuse Studies and became a Navy drug and alcohol counselor, I spent my last five years in the Navy in the recovery field. I then worked in as a civilian in a relatively effective drug and alcohol recovery program where I was involved with attempting to help some pretty hard core cases including at least one bank robber and men and women who had been convicted of many different crimes which they had committed as a result of their alcohol/drug addiction.
However, as much deprivation as the use of drugs and the undisciplined use of alcohol has caused. There are more deaths and serious health problems directly related to another addicting habit: smoking. Of course, often smoking goes hand in hand with the abuse of other chemicals...
I stopped smoking in 1980 because I went on Navy flying status as an aircrewman and I had to pass the water survival test. It was extremely important for me to become flight qualified because I had been invited to return to the Unit I had served in during the Vietnam War and being fight qualified was a requirement. It also paid me a couple of hundred dollars a month extra. That was very important to me because in 1980 a hundred dollars was worth a LOT more than it is now. I knew that I would have a hard time passing the underwater swim portion of the test so, I decided not to smoke for a while so I would have a better chance of passing. I began to feel so darn good that I never reverted to smoking.
So in a period of 4 years, beginning 38 years ago, I stopped both smoking and drinking. I have been alcohol and nicotine free for just about half of my life. I am pretty sure that those decisions have contributed to me being able to wake up on this side of the grass every morning at age 78; instead of sleeping under a stone like so many of my Navy buddies of about my same age are doing...