Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey you. Yeah, you, if you or someone you know, is struggling with anything mentioned on today's program, please, please, please, please, please, please email
[email protected]. That's a U T H E N I C K. The
[email protected]. I am available 24 seven three 65 to help in any way that I can. I have resources. I have open ears and open heart and tons of hope. I've been freely given all these things and would love to give them to you. Be good to yourselves and each other. <inaudible> welcome. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the show. This is authentic.
Speaker 1 00:01:20 Are good author.
Speaker 0 00:01:24 I really got to work on that jingle. Welcome to the show. My name is Nicholas Thomas Fitzsimmons Vanden Heuvel but most people just call me Nick. And this is my show authentic. And with me as always is my dog Marla.
Speaker 1 00:01:46 No.
Speaker 0 00:01:52 Oh right. That's that's enough. Marlin. Why don't you go back to licking? Billy's idle on authentic, where we get authentic. We talk about all things recovery. What do I mean by that? All things recovery. What, what I mean by that is if you are still living and breathing on this earth, you, yes, you are in recovery from something. As for me, I'm in recovery from an eating disorder. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm a compulsive gambler. I bipolar disorder. Really the list could go on and on and on. However, this show today is not about me. It is about two people. First is my guest. Pete second is the one person that we are going to help on. Today's show. Pete is going to share his experience, strength and hope as it pertains to his alcoholism. Pete, please introduce yourself in any way you see fit.
Speaker 1 00:02:44 Thanks, Nick. I'm peach. I grew up in the twin cities. I still live in the twin cities.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 54 years old. I got sober when I was 52. I've been married for 26 years. I have four grown children. Two dogs. Yeah, I'm going on 20 months.
Speaker 2 00:03:00 So yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:00 Congratulations. Thank you, Pete. Thank you so much for being in the studio with me today. Why are you here? I said in the introduction that you are here to talk about your alcoholism, but really why are you here?
Speaker 2 00:03:13 Here? I know sharing my story will help. Maybe one person, maybe other people, hopefully people hear something in my story that they can relate to. If I can help one person get plucked out of the depth of despair that I was in, that would make it worth this visit for sure. And I was in a place where I didn't know what to do. I get into that more, a little bit later, but reaching out to the, still suffering
Speaker 0 00:03:38 Out there. And that is exactly what we do here on authentic. We are about solutions. We are about providing hope. We are telling people that you are not alone, right?
Speaker 2 00:03:47 Exactly it. And they, they are not alone.
Speaker 0 00:03:50 Now I'm going to tell you folks, this 54 year old guy, who's 20 months sober is one sexy look and sob, go ahead. You can laugh. Oh God, he's wearing my favorite shirt. It's your shirt now. Oh, he's going to give it to me. Literally the shirt off his back, ladies and gentlemen, if you stay sober for 20 months, you will start giving your clothes away. Something to look forward to Pete, let's get right to it, man. When did you start drinking? And what did that look like?
Speaker 2 00:04:17 Like a lot of people, I started drinking more on a regular basis in high school, ninth or 10th grade. I was just thinking about this. Not too long ago. I had a group of friends and my family moved when I was in second grade. So I started in a new elementary school in second grade. And it was a, it was a great school, made a lot of friends. I had those friends, they were close friends. They stayed friends. But you know, at some point in high school, I separated from that group of my, up to that point, lifelong friends. And I took up with a different group of kids. Why was that? Because those, those friends that I had known since elementary school, they weren't really into going to parties on the weekends and in drinking
Speaker 0 00:04:56 Peed the party animal.
Speaker 2 00:04:59 I took up with the guys that like to have fun.
Speaker 0 00:05:02 Yeah. I have fun and fun meant drinking. Yes. What did drinking look like at the very beginning? What was, do you remember what your first drink was? I remember mine. Mine was an MGD light. I stole it out of my parents' fridge in the basement. And I went up onto our deck. Nobody was home and I took a sip of that beer. I was 12 years old, took a sip of that beer and I spit it out. Oh, this is gross. And then something weird happened. I took another sip and I swallowed it and then I took another sip and I smelled it. I finished the beer. And that to me is what started my alcoholism from my very first sip. And I finished that beer. What was your first?
Speaker 2 00:05:36 I probably had a sip of my parents' cocktail or a beer or something. I don't remember exactly when that would have been, but I remember before a dance in junior high, splitting up a small bottle of Blackberry, Brandy with someone. Yeah. It's very Minnesotan of you. Yeah. Who, by the way, this particular gentleman has been in recovery for over 20 years.
Speaker 0 00:06:01 Funny how that works. Yeah. When you got into high school, you mentioned to me earlier, before we came on the air that drinking really started for you when you were 15. So you were what? A sophomore in high school. And you said that you liked the guys, that party, you liked to have quote unquote fun. And you separated yourself from your old friends, the friends that you started being lifelong friends with since second grade, when you moved to this wonderful new school, why was hanging out with these new guys? Fun and not fun with the other guys
Speaker 2 00:06:32 Probably was a lot of it was just centered around the drinking and what would happen when we drank. Okay. So what happened when you drank? You'd go to fun parties and there were girls at parties. If I swelled down a few red solo cups full of old Milwaukee, I was comfortable talking to girls and talking to other people. I felt like a different person. People will recall the first time they got drunk or started to get a little inebriated or a little, a little high they'll say know, I just had this feeling come over me like, wow, this is what it feels like to be at ease. And I remember that I was in the driveway of a house in st. Paul at a party. And I just felt comfortable.
Speaker 0 00:07:11 I'll say this. I've never heard a nonalcoholic reminisce about the very first time they felt that they were finally at ease. They could talk to girls. They were comfortable in their own skin. Was there something going on with you where you weren't comfortable with who you were at that
Speaker 2 00:07:29 I tell my siblings. I said, you know, we had, we had sort of an unstable childhood, told my sister, my older sister that once. And she said, Pete, it wasn't unstable. It was a shit show. What about it was a shit show, Pete. I was the youngest of four kids. My dad took his own life when I was seven. You know, I had three older siblings that were two teenagers, one almost ready to be a teenager. I was seven. Mom was 38, 39 years old. And she had four kids to raise. I had to do it by herself. She did a great job. She did the best she could. You know, you hear all of these things. I mean, she's a wonderful woman. She had four kids in our hands. We weren't all angels. It was crazy. All sorts of shenanigans going on. It wasn't a normal childhood since I was seven years old, I didn't know any different. So it was
Speaker 0 00:08:15 How do you mean you didn't know any different, different from
Speaker 2 00:08:17 What things would happen? My mom was dating a guy. This was years after my dad passed away. She was dating a guy, some other guy that she used to date showed up at the front door drunk. He wanted to go after this guy that my mom was dating. You know, they ended up getting in a fist fight in our front step. And you watching the whole time? Yes. Yup. And what was that like for you? It was scary. Look, I was a retired Marine. We thought he was going to destroy this boyfriend that my mom was going out with at the time to Ron's credit. He, uh, planted a good one on the, on the Marine and dropped him, knocked him out. My brother dragged the guy into the guy's car, drove him down the road to a school and left him in the parking lot
Speaker 0 00:08:57 For you. Did you think that that was a normal thing? This is just something that happens. I know you
Speaker 2 00:09:02 Scared. I knew things weren't right. Of course. You know, when we, we moved to this new house shortly after my dad took his own life. My mom would tell me if anyone asks how your father died. Just tell him that he had a heart attack. Was there shamed in there? Yeah. We never talked about his, never talked about his death. Have you addressed it? Since my wife and I went to a marriage counselor starting about 15 years ago and we started the session, the psychologist asked my wife, you know, just tell me a little bit about where you grew up, what your life was like and things like that. She did that. I got to mine, told my S my story to him. And he went on and on about how hard that is and how horrible it is. I was sitting there thinking, well, yeah, it's bad. But I came out. Okay. It wasn't that bad. There's certainly a lot of people that go through more horrible things than, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:51 That's an interesting way of looking at it. There are other people out there that go through more difficult things than what I went through. You're saying that your father's suicide was never addressed until 15 years ago when you started marriage counseling. And so what did that look like hanging on to that? Not being able to talk about it since the age of seven, did that have anything to do with you starting to use alcohol to SU truly? What was your reaction internally when you were seven years old and your dad took his life? Did you comprehend that concept?
Speaker 2 00:10:26 I don't think I did. I don't remember feeling really scared about not having my dad around. I remember leaving that the office of the marriage counselor thinking, well, am I really messed up? I mean, he made it sound like Pete, you should be a broken person. He said, it just made me feel like I should have some problems that I thought, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's really affected me. You know, I'm married. Yeah. I'm in a marriage counselor's office. A lot of people go to that. You know,
Speaker 0 00:10:58 That's why I'm not going to get married. I just, I don't want to go to marriage counseling.
Speaker 2 00:11:02 Yeah. Well really that, when we, when we were, when we got there, my wife, God bless her. We were done telling the story and, and my wife interject and said, well, when are we going to talk about his drinking fell kind of hijacked. Psychologist said, well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that later, sitting there thinking I should probably get to that now. And that was 15 years ago. I knew it was an issue.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 Back then, there was a therapist telling you that you needed to feel or have a certain reaction to your dad's suicide. And that you somehow are hiding this thing, buried it deep down inside where it's just waiting to spring up. But it hasn't, that's not your experience that wasn't your reaction. And then your wife brings up, well, when are we going to talk about his drinking? And you said you felt hijacked. So not only is a therapist telling you that you need to feel a certain way or that you haven't unearthed something that you've put deep down inside of you.
Speaker 2 00:11:56 I wasn't surprised. I figured it would be coming up at some point in the counseling. Anytime my drinking came up, I just didn't want to talk about it, period. Why not? Because it was uncomfortable and I didn't want to be found out. And I didn't, I didn't want to talk to anybody who was going to ask me questions. I didn't want to have to admit that I had a drinking
Speaker 0 00:12:15 Problem. I'm not sure, but I don't think I've ever encountered someone that wants to admit that they have a drinking problem. Let's go back to before it was recognized as a problem. So you're in high school, you're doing the weekend warrior stuff with your friends. You're having fun. How did your drinking career progress after that? From just being weekend warrior stuff. What is your next couple of years look like
Speaker 2 00:12:39 Going to college? I joined a fraternity. It was, it was more of the same. There was always somebody to drink with. And if there wasn't someone around, uh, my refrigerator was stocked with beer and I drank beer. I rarely drink hard alcohol. Why was that? Do you think? I don't know if it was just an expense thing, but in, in high school you could pretty much go to just about any liquor store. My buddy and I went into a liquor store in st. Paul wearing our letter jackets. And, uh, do you have any chevrons? No, I had, I lettered in football
Speaker 0 00:13:12 Moving forward to fraternity life. And you could drink whenever you wanted, you always had somebody to drink with. Is that something you were seeking out at the time? Just someone to experience that fun with? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:25 Yes. For sure. Because I quickly earned a reputation probably a week or two before school, we were having a party and I got three guys jumped me and they beat the heck out of me, knocked me on God, kicked me in the face, knocked me unconscious, almost ripped part of my ear off that sets some things in motion for me.
Speaker 0 00:13:44 What were those things that got set in motion?
Speaker 2 00:13:46 It's a badass. He's not afraid to go toe to toe. I wasn't a fighter in college. I earned this reputation of being a bit of a, a wild man. A little crazy. Right?
Speaker 0 00:13:58 A little crazy. Yes. When you got through college, what did your drinking look like? It was every day. I, when did you start? During the,
Speaker 2 00:14:07 I started, as soon as I got home from work, I buy a 12 pack of beer. Sometimes I drink the whole thing. Sometimes there'd be a few left, but you know, the next day, if I knew I only had three beers left, I was stopping. I was stopping. I had beer every day. From the time I got home from work until I went to bed at night. Was that
Speaker 0 00:14:25 Just something you did? Was that the mindset? Was this just something you did every day after work? Or was there something lying underneath that? Was there something driving at is like, Oh man, I'm getting through the day and I just can't wait until I get done with work so I can go drink just that preoccupation with that's what I'm going to do later. I just need to get through this. What was it you needed to get through in order to go do what you wanted do, which was drink?
Speaker 2 00:14:52 It's what I watched my mom do. Growing up. She drank every day. I don't know if that's something that I watched and learned.
Speaker 0 00:15:01 You have a recollection of when you had that notice moment. I noticed that my mom drinks every night, perhaps just perhaps that could have planted a seed that seed of normalcy, where you are seeing the authority, the authority figure in your life, the nurturer doing this. So that's what people do.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 I'm hesitant to. Yeah, you're you're I think you're spot on it. Certainly didn't help a kid grows up in a house where there's no alcohol. I don't know. Are they less likely to drink or abuse alcohol?
Speaker 0 00:15:37 You brought that up because with every sip, every single interviewee that I have, inevitably, we come to this conversation about nature versus nurture. In my case, both of my parents are non alcoholics. I've never seen either of my parents drunk. Their idea of drinks is next to nothing. However, they both had fathers that were alcoholics. They both had siblings that were alcoholics and it had issues with addiction. They wanted to stop that cycle of addiction. We don't want our kids to go through that pain. I have three sisters, nine alcoholics, and then there's me three out of four, nine alcoholics, not bad. That's a 75% success rate. If I've never seen either of my parents drunk that wasn't the message that I was receiving. That this is what you do. This is what you do at the end of the day. This is what we do with our friends. This is what we do on the weekend. This is what we do after going to the Lake, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was never part of my childhood. It just wasn't present yet. I became an addict. I became a full blown alcoholic. By the time I was 19 years old, that to me says, there's no nurture involved. This is all nature. This is all in my DNA. What percentage of nature versus nurture are you living in? Is there a history of alcoholism and addiction in your family?
Speaker 2 00:16:56 I had a grandfather. He took off in the forties to work on the Alaskan highway, as far as I know, uh, you know, he returned to the twin cities, but he and my grandmother got divorced. He lived on the streets of Minneapolis. I remember going to visit him at the VA home, my sisters and brother, and I still joke about loading up in the car, going to look for grandpa driving up and down to downtown Minneapolis, you know, going by the salvation army, going by the bus station. And you know, we turned it into a game, you know, who can ice by a grandpa first? He wouldn't stay put in a home. He'd be in the VA home. And he'd the guy would walk out. It wasn't until he was older where he just physically couldn't get out anymore. I'm sure he was an alcoholic. Although I don't remember hearing my parents talk about that
Speaker 0 00:17:45 Again. There's this normalcy surrounding addiction. And not only is there normalcy surrounding it, we don't talk about it. If you talked about it, maybe that would bring some sort of truth, some sort of feelings, some sort of explanation for what's going on. However, when you don't address it, that's a little confusing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:06 I, um, I mean, I'm comfortable talking about it now, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 0 00:18:10 That's well, I'm not talking about right now. Yeah. I'm talking about when you were growing up, when those formative years are happening, those are the messages you were saying.
Speaker 2 00:18:21 Going back to high school for a second. My friends and I hung out at my house when my mom was there, my room was down in the basement and we could sit down there and drink away. You know, she had no problem with it. I, I remember other people I went to school with who would panic if they were at a party and had a few beers and had to get back home. And they were worried about their parents smelling alcohol on their breath. And I was thinking, well, I don't even have a curfew. As long as I show up at a reasonable time tomorrow morning and I'll be good to go.
Speaker 0 00:18:52 It sounds like you were growing up pretty fast.
Speaker 2 00:18:54 I did. I was the youngest of four kids. My siblings are eight, seven and five years older than me. And as I tell people, by the time I got to high school, my siblings had beaten my mother into submission, figuratively speaking, generally speaking now as a pretty good kid, I wasn't getting in trouble at school. I, I did well academically until my junior senior year. You know, I had jobs, two jobs from the time I was 16. I always worked two jobs and she was kind of hands off on that. I mean, she's a very loving mother. Very great provider made me breakfast every day for school. She sent me, I had a Brown bag lunch every day I went to school. I never, I think I ate hot lunch from once
Speaker 0 00:19:40 She was a mom. Yes, she was a mom. Yeah. She did mom things. However, there's that one thing about mom, she drinks every day. Your memories of your dad. Do you ever recall him being a drinker? I know you were seven years old when he took his life. What sort of memories do you have about him pertaining to
Speaker 2 00:20:03 Drinking? I have no idea. No clue about his drinking patterns or if it was a problem for him. I, I don't know. I'm going to, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:20:11 I ask you a question. You can answer it or choose not to. Do you know why your dad committed
Speaker 2 00:20:16 It's suicide? I know he suffered from depression. It wasn't until years later, because there was a while there where I thought, you know what, a week till he pulls his car into the garage and bails on us. But then, you know, part of it was, he was mentally ill. He was sick.
Speaker 0 00:20:33 You can come to that realization. Now in hindsight, at that time though, you used the term weak tit. Yeah. What other feelings were surrounding? That it's hard Nick.
Speaker 2 00:20:43 Cause I don't, I don't remember. I can't recall what through my mind,
Speaker 0 00:20:48 When I was seven. Right? I can tell you that. I don't remember being sad. Hmm. Just can't remember being sad. And I'm sure you know, that psychologist that I went to see with my wife, it had to have a very negative effect on me. I it's hard for me to pinpoint what they are. Fears of abandonment, you know, who knows. I, I'm not going to play armchair psychologist. There's a reason why people recall certain things and repress other things. It's just a survival technique. This may be too big of a feeling for me to feel. I'm just not supposed to feel it. That's how I survived. This is called recovery. Right? Right. It's surviving certain things. Whether it's addressed in this deep Pete, what were your feelings about, how did you feel about your dad's suicide? Well, you know, I just don't remember being sad.
Speaker 0 00:21:42 And to me, what that says is you're just surviving. You're just being yourself. That is how your body and your brain reacted to this situation. It doesn't have to be labeled a certain way. However, let's not forget that may have something to do with your addiction. I think it's a big part of it. One thing I've learned in the last two years, you know, let's call it a chaotic life. You can call it a shit, show, unstable, whatever. Some you're a young kid in there's chaos around you. No one likes to be in a chaotic situation. What I've learned is that chaos created fear in the fear, turned to anger. I mean, I remember a girl maybe when I was in sixth or seventh grade, I was young and I don't remember the exact context of it, but who looked at me and said, uh, why are you so angry?
Speaker 0 00:22:33 And I remember that. I remember where I was when she asked me that I remember who it was that asked me that. Think about, think about that. Now you don't remember being sad. You don't necessarily remember these feelings at seven years old when your dad committed suicide. Yet you remember this girl saying that to you? Yeah. That bubbling to the surface. And that's five, six years after that traumatic event, you got to call it that because literally that's, that's what it is. Yeah. Well that's what the psychologist said. He said, Pete, that's trauma. Why we talk about all things recovery on this show is you're an alcoholic. Admittedly, you're also in recovery from life. You're in recovery from your dad's suicide, whatever that looks like. We're all in different stages of healing and addressing, finding solutions for fill in the blank. It's not just about your drinking, Pete. It's about you as a person. These are the little puzzle pieces that make you who you are and they don't have to make sense to other people. People don't have to make sense of your life. What really matters is how are you showing up this girl at 12 or 13 years old told you that you're angry. I didn't get any less angry. My drinking
Speaker 2 00:23:46 Was just a symptom. It calmed me down. I wasn't a quote, unquote, angry, drunk. I didn't get prone to outbursts or I didn't feel like fighting people or anything like that. I was probably a pretty fun guy to be around. As long as you were close to as drunk as me and not sober, you know, your friends just, they don't know what they're going to get with Pete, who knows what's going to happen tonight.
Speaker 0 00:24:09 Something crazy. Yeah. A story will come out of tonight. Yes. Moving forward. There's this common theme with people that are problem drinkers or have issues with addiction substances. What have you consequences start happening? And I mentioned to you that we're going to talk about spam, my spam fitness, and what that is, is just an acronym. Spam spirituality, physical, emotional, mental. What did your spam life look like right then? And there, when you were just having a blast, what was your spirituality? Did you have any,
Speaker 2 00:24:45 Yeah, I guess there was some spirituality there. Did you believe in God? You know, I kind of drifted in and out of that thing, I was definitely the, you know, the foxhole, God guy, please help me get out of this. Yeah. And there, and there were times later where I got more spiritual and I would, I'd pray to God to just help me stop drinking.
Speaker 0 00:25:06 Are you at physically at that point, were you having any adverse physical effects to your body or were you just live in the twenties life?
Speaker 2 00:25:14 Well, as I mentioned, you know, when I graduated from high school, I was a hundred and caught 130 pounds. I didn't really start to feel any effects until after college. I started I've. I got a job where I was sitting in a desk drinking a 12 pack or more of beer every night. I did. I don't know if my, my metabolism started to slow down and empty calories going in if that caught up. But I got a beer gut. I started to put on,
Speaker 0 00:25:39 Wait, emotionally, where were you at? Were you in touch with your emotions at all? Where was your anger level at?
Speaker 2 00:25:45 I had certain targets for my anger and it was mostly, you know, I'd get really fired up. When, when I get into political discussions with people, I was intolerant towards other people in general, I'd get very impatient. You know, I traveled for work and I was gone two to four trips a month going to the airport. Some people who aren't familiar with travel, who are looking around for where to go and what to do, and they're struggling putting their bag up. You know, I'd get impatient with people like that. You know, my anger, it probably manifested itself more in passive aggressive behavior. Like a true Minnesotan. Yeah. That's what I've heard is sarcasm. You know, my wife finally put her foot down at one point, said, there's no sarcasm allowed in this house. I was told,
Speaker 0 00:26:33 Sold by a therapist that my sarcasm was a form of verbal abuse. That's what my sarcasm was. Whether I knew it or not subtle verbal, emotional abuse when it was put to me that way, I was damn. I've been doing that my whole life. That's how I've been showing up. I want to know where you were at mentally. What was your mental health looking like at that point? You were drinking every night, 12 pack every night you were traveling for work. What was your mental health like any sort of depression or anxiety?
Speaker 2 00:27:06 I didn't feel any of those things overall. I was pretty happy with how my life was going. Post-college I was enjoying life. I had a job that I enjoyed. I had this great house, great girlfriend. Things seem to be going really well.
Speaker 0 00:27:20 Well, they seemed to be going really well. And maybe they were, there's a reason you're sitting across from me at cafe AI, community radio, talking about alcoholism because at some point it wasn't going really well. You know, you'd have to flash forward. I want to know when you noticed things started to change when it stopped from being normal or fun to actually being a thing. Was there any sort of aha moment where yeah, I think I might have a problem with drinking.
Speaker 2 00:27:52 I might recognition definitely started in college. I was usually one of, sometimes the only person up at three or four o'clock in the morning. It sounds like somebody. I know. I don't know if I was looking for someone else who was still up somewhere. There were, there were times sometimes I'd start drinking so early that I'd fall asleep at six o'clock in the evening and not wake up until the next day tie in one on brother. Well, if I start in the morning, um,
Speaker 0 00:28:19 Can't drink all day. If you don't start in the morning,
Speaker 2 00:28:21 That's, that's what I've been told. And that's what I did. I always knew I could drink a lot. Maybe I wore that as a badge of honor. That was kind of my thing. You know, looking back on it now, 20 months after quitting drinking, I had a group of quote, unquote friends that I hung around with at the bar I used to go to. And some of them are still friends that are still drinking, but they were drinking buddies. I started gravitating towards people like that in high school. People who were not afraid to go out and drink like an idiot and not pointing fingers. Yes,
Speaker 0 00:28:58 Yes. Gravitating towards people that drink like me. So there's no shame. There's no guilt. There's actually joy and happiness and laughter it's like, Oh fuck. That was crazy. What happened last night? All right, let's do it again tonight. What's going to happen tonight. Let's flip a coin. What does your drinking look like in your thirties and forties?
Speaker 2 00:29:18 It was really, it was more the same.
Speaker 0 00:29:20 Any sort of ebb and flow up and down. Were there any sort of points in your thirties or forties where you're drinking subsided or it got really, really intense. It stayed pretty
Speaker 2 00:29:32 The stable. It was every night. I got a, a DWI in 1996 that caused me to hit the pause on my drinking or maybe two weeks.
Speaker 0 00:29:43 And then it was back to more of the same. Yeah. Were you still drinking and driving after that?
Speaker 2 00:29:49 After the DWI? Yeah, I didn't for the longest time. And then I just started again, if I was somewhere like with my family, I I'd say okay. I have to make sure I'm not impaired, but no, I still did. If I was out somewhere, I don't know that I would have had a point tool or a 0.3 off. I got pulled over, but I'm, you know, certainly I was over the legal limit and I would drive
Speaker 0 00:30:13 Any other consequences happening in your thirties and forties that made you, or sort of forced you to take that pause to hit the pause button, like you said in 1996,
Speaker 2 00:30:23 I do remember thinking, cause in my thirties I had kids
Speaker 0 00:30:27 Beds. Did that affect how much
Speaker 2 00:30:29 We were drinking? No. It never occurred to me to slow down wife say anything. If it was a concern for her, she wasn't relentless about voicing her concern.
Speaker 0 00:30:38 I want to know when, if ever she put her foot down really addressed you and had a conversation about
Speaker 2 00:30:47 You're drinking. I don't remember a specific conversation where she said stop her else or anything like that.
Speaker 0 00:30:55 Was your wife or did your wife drink
Speaker 2 00:30:57 Like you did? No, not, not like I did. It's one or two glasses of wine typically. And then it's okay.
Speaker 0 00:31:03 I don't understand that I one or two glasses of wine and you're done. I don't get that either. Not even in it's no fun. That's not even a pregame man. That to me is just frustration. What's the point
Speaker 2 00:31:15 Going someplace. And I'd have one cocktail knowing that I had to endure two or three hours more before I could get home and drink like a normal person. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:31:24 Obsession that obsession with the next drink dominates how I thought I'm making this assumption that you have somewhat of the same thought process I did because we share the common illness of alcoholism. It was this obsession with, when am I going to get my next drink? I better make this one, a strong one. I'm not going to be able to get home and drink my 12 pack until nine. And it's only six 30. Maybe I'll have to make an excuse that I have to go to the bathroom and I'll have to run up to the bar and take a shot. Maybe I'll have to go around to the corner store and grab a pint of something and slam it. This obsession with, when am I going to get more? How am I going to get more? And it isn't relieved until I have what I need to get through the night or to get through the day to get me to that sweet spot where I am no longer agitated. I am no longer frustrated. All the things that were bothering me that were making me just clinch my fist and just grind my teeth. It's gone. And I was a very unpleasant person until I got there. When you got sober at 52, where were you at? How were you showing up in life? What kind of father were you? What kind of husband were you? I was involved was
Speaker 2 00:32:40 Going to the games. I was spending time with my kids, faithful husband,
Speaker 0 00:32:44 All the things on paper. Are there all the things on paper for sure. What was going on inside of you? Where was your spirituality?
Speaker 2 00:32:52 We sent our kids to parochial school. We went to church every Sunday as a family.
Speaker 0 00:32:58 Again on paper. Everything seems to be in place truly. Where were you at spiritually when you were 50 51.
Speaker 2 00:33:07 By that time I was done with church. Kids got older week. Part of going to church on Sundays was we, we felt compelled to go to church on Sundays because our kids went to this parochial school, my wife and I both wanted our kids to have a religious upbringing. My wife and I were both. Like-minded in that, you know, when you're old enough and you're out of the house and you want to this isn't for you. You go find your own thing or no thing or whatever. But I always used to tell them when they would complain about going to church on Sunday is that's fine. I can, I'll switch you over to the other school and switch you over to the public school. That's fine. If you don't want to go to church and they'd go, I mean, we made them go,
Speaker 0 00:33:46 Essentially. I'm talking about your spirit.
Speaker 2 00:33:51 I drifted in and out. I, uh, there were times where I couldn't read enough books about, and I was reading specifically books about Catholicism. I felt like I didn't know enough about my religion. I wanted to know more deeper understanding of it. I wanted to take a good, strong run at it and see where it led me.
Speaker 0 00:34:12 Why do you think you were doing that near the end of your drinking career?
Speaker 2 00:34:17 You know what ended up happening Nick is I quit going to church. Why am I doing this? What, what has God done for me? My dad took his life when I was seven. I'm a fatherless kid growing up, which sucks. I had all this chaos and craziness growing up as a kid. The message I'd hear in church is pray and God's with you. And it just didn't add up to me. Not that my life sucked. I felt like I was on at best. I was on the B team on God's B team. For whatever reason. I don't know. Maybe I was trying to get on his good side. I don't know what I was trying to.
Speaker 0 00:34:51 It almost sounds like, and this is just purely my interpretation. What I'm hearing. There was almost this sense of abandonment from God. It's like, what has God done for me? Why aren't you looking out for me? I'll dig deeper. I'll I'll try and figure this thing out. But the fuck
Speaker 2 00:35:06 Really. I think abandonment is a fair word to use about how I felt at that point. What was it?
Speaker 0 00:35:12 Your physical state? Were you suffering any physical consequences from your, let's see here you started when you were 15. That's 37 years of drinking consistently every night. No.
Speaker 2 00:35:25 Other than some weight gain, it was right towards the end. I just never went to the doctor. I knew I was drinking enough where it's going to catch up with me sooner or later I had heard the fifties is the decade. When all your stuff catches up with you,
Speaker 0 00:35:39 You have this idea in your head leading up to your fifties that you're just like, alright, I better enjoy it while it's here. And I'll deal with it when I'm in my fifties, I'll probably stop when it gets to that point.
Speaker 2 00:35:49 I thought I'll probably get pancreatitis before I get cirrhosis. Yeah. It's not that big of a deal. Then I'll have to stop drinking for at least a year. Right? I take a little break. Yeah, I did that. I used to have ads pop up on Facebook and social media about liver supplements and stuff. And I'm thinking, does my iPhone does it? No, I'm going to the liquor store every night. Does that algorithm know? At some point it said, okay, we've got an alcoholic here. You know, some people go to different liquor stores so that the person that's working in the store doesn't know you're an alcoholic. I think Facebook just gave up on me. I did go to a couple of different liquor stores. It wasn't to hide my heavy drinking from the person working at the liquor store. It just was more convenient depending on how I came home. So
Speaker 0 00:36:36 Shame when it came to go into the liquor store every night,
Speaker 2 00:36:39 I was never embarrassed. I sometimes after a while, you know, I was drinking wine every night because wine's a little more sophisticated. It's just a couple of bottles of wine, but I would go to the liquor store and I'd buy two bottles of wine, at least sometimes three. And then I just thought, who am I kidding? I can get a case price. I'm just going to buy a case of wine. And then I don't have to come back to the liquor store for a couple of days. It would be less than a week. And I'd be back. Those ads would pop up or I'd see an article, you know, in a, in a magazine about the effects of alcohol or what it does do your liver. And I just, I didn't want to read those. I didn't want to, I didn't click on that link to read the article. I didn't, if it was in a magazine, I just
Speaker 0 00:37:22 Afraid of what you might read and that it would describe it.
Speaker 2 00:37:26 I will tell you, I did read one article and that was probably the last article I read as it pertains specifically to what it does to your liver in the article they laid out in there, you know, it said, how much do you have to drink to get cirrhosis or something to that effect? And what they said was quantity can definitely do it. It's more the repeated beating your liver takes every single night. If you're drinking every night. One thing I did read in there that brought a little comfort was if you do quit drinking, if you're not too far gone, it can regenerate. And that's what I thought. Well, shit, I'm, I'm pummeling this thing every night. And that's when I was just drinking beer. And then I started really going to town. When I switched over to vodka. I don't know
Speaker 0 00:38:11 Why it is, but I hear story after story, after story of alcoholics at the end of their drinking careers at the end of their using switch to vodka and not good vodka Rael ass. Was that your experience?
Speaker 2 00:38:28 Uh, you know, I, I didn't, I didn't go rail ass. Um, what did you go? Here's the story we got to I'm in the fitness business. I'm gaining this weight, you know, I'm skinny fat, so it's not like I'm fat all around, but I got the gut hanging out. I got the drunk billowed going in the face, sexy. I went to a trainer that I knew. I said, listen, I got to get in shape. And so we went over a few things. And one of the things the trainer will ask is about what you eat, what you drink amongst other things. Of course, I lied to him when I told him about my drinking. I said, well, you know, my wife and I usually have a bottle of wine most nights, not every night. Well, that was true. We had one bottle a, well, we drink a bottle of wine, but I would drink more than that. I said, I'm not going to go drinking, whatever excuse I gave him. He said, well, if you have to drink, stick to the red wine or a vodka soda, he said, Tito's is gluten
Speaker 0 00:39:21 Free. It sure is. And it's from Texas.
Speaker 2 00:39:24 Yeah. And it's distilled seven times. Yes, it is my joke to my wife. She, I started drinking this. I bring a bottle of Tito's home. She's like, what's up with the vodka? I said, well, I met with my trainer and this essentially is a health drink. Yes. That's what I used to call. It is a health drink. Put a lime in it and you're getting vitamin C absolutely no sugar. It's less than 70 calories
Speaker 0 00:39:47 If you're only putting one shot in.
Speaker 2 00:39:51 Well, yeah, the first one might've been one shot, but my magic number, I don't remember what it was on beers. It got to the point where I hardly felt intoxicated. I could pound down, you know, six, seven beers pretty quickly. And I didn't feel the effects much. But when I switched over to vodka, my magic number was three. I'd get to that third one. I felt the tension, leave my body. And it's like, Oh, okay. Now I, and now I'm good. No, I wouldn't stop at three. Going to the bar. I'd order Tito's and soda and a pint class. Well, I wouldn't even have to order a, they know what you want. They know. I mean, I met some, some friends from college at my bar before my ass hit the seat. I had a, at a Tito's and soda on the table. And my buddies from college were like, come here quite often. Then I had to make a conscious effort to drink slowly so that I wasn't ordering. I'm not exaggerating. I could easily go through two to four cups
Speaker 0 00:40:49 In the time it takes them to drink one. Yes. That rationing of alcohol. What a preoccupation, what did, what did an exhausting mental state to be in? And that's the experience of so many alcoholics. And I I'm just going to speak from my own experience. It's that obsession, relentless need for more and that concern around people that don't drink like me. It's almost like a game I'm going to fool them to think that I'm only having one drink when I'm already half in the bag. When I get there or I'm sneaking up to the bar, I got a little little deal with the bartender. Hey, I'm going to run and take a piss, throw back a two fingers of something. How am I going to get where I need to be without anybody else knowing, because once I get to that point, then I can be me. Then I can relax. When did that stop? Pete, that relentlessness of the obsession of alcohol,
Speaker 2 00:41:44 I drank for 30 plus years, but it's almost like it just came up and bit me in the ass or it's. I just sat there and thought what the hell happened when my wife and I would talk about my drinking. I'd say, it's not like I'm at the bar every night. I don't wake up in the morning and drink alcohol. I got to the point where I'm opening the fridge at seven 30, eight o'clock in the morning taking the orange juice out. And I thought, Oh, let me just add a little back in there. I'm sure I pouring that bottle into the orange juice. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I was doing the things that, you know, told my wife. I wasn't doing that. Alright. Maybe I drink a lot, but I'm not an alcoholic. I don't drink in the morning. Well, now I'm drinking in the morning.
Speaker 2 00:42:25 I'm going to the bar by myself. And she said, well, you're going to the bar by yourself. Well, I go by myself, but I'm not alone when I get there. I know a lot of people there, but I'd go up there at 10 o'clock at night, my family's asleep and I had the bars two, three blocks away. I'd drive up there and I'd sit at the end of the bar and have two or three drinks when I could had it at home. But I'd, I'd go up there and hope. I could maybe find someone that I could do some serious drinking with up there. So I didn't have to do it by myself. I was never opposed to drinking by myself. I wanted to go up there. I was antsy, you know, I wanted to, I was anxious. I wanted to get out of the house and go up there. Yeah. I started drinking in the morning and then I started feeling anxious. I really I'd never felt like that. Not this kind of 24, seven impending doom, tight chest. It's like, I could feel the cortisol, heart palpitations, no matter how much I drank, it would not subside. My wife finally made a doctor appointment for me and I, I willingly went. I said, yeah, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get something to help me with my anxiety.
Speaker 0 00:43:25 Did you ask her to do that? Or did she do that?
Speaker 2 00:43:27 No. If she made the appointment and she said, you're going to see the doctor
Speaker 0 00:43:31 And you were opening up to her about your anxiety.
Speaker 2 00:43:33 I spent the better part of 20 years sleeping on the couch, being overweight, drinking. I snored like a freight train, sleep apnea. I just slept on the couch. I just fell asleep on the couch. You know, usually in my clothes, my kids woke up to me in the morning, you know, that's just, they grew up just, Oh, dad sleeps on the couch. Just like mom drinks every night. Yeah. I went to the doctor. I told him what my symptoms were. He asked me about my drinking. Of course I lied to him under exaggerated, my drinking. I, you know, I said, yeah, you know, I drink every night, but it's not very much. And he prescribed an antianxiety medication for me and he told me, he said, one drink a night. If you have to drink, he said, you're better off. You said drinking more than this.
Speaker 2 00:44:15 We'll just cancel out the effects of the medication. And I gave it a go for a couple of weeks. I thought, you know, maybe if this medication helps me, I won't have to drink so much. Did it help cutting back on drinking? Didn't you know, some of that medication takes weeks to get a foothold. I didn't give it that much time. My wife knew the directions from the doctor. One drink a night. So sit there and bite my nails for getting home from work. And I will just wait and wait. I'd put off having that first drink for as long as possible, because I knew if I had that one, let's say at six o'clock, I was going to be miserable. So I thought I just got to bide my time and wait as long as possible to have that first drink. I may be kept that under control for a week or two, but then I buy a bottle of vodka and, and hide it.
Speaker 2 00:45:02 And then my wife would go to bed and I had, I drank. And then I drank. I started drinking during the day. If she left the house for work, I could, I could be at home and drink if I didn't have to go into the office. Pretty soon though, my, my anxiety got so bad that I would wake up on the couch and I could not, I could not leave. I couldn't get into the office. I couldn't function. I was able to work from home, meaning that I physically was able to do my job from home, but I wasn't doing it. I would start drinking. And then I just sat and drank and watched TV. And I thought I can drink until two. And then I'll be able to be sober enough for when my wife comes home. You know, I'll be able to have my one with her and then I can hold it off until she goes to bed.
Speaker 2 00:45:46 And then I can drink again. You know, I used to travel for work alone in a hotel room. Hallelujah. I mean, I could just alcoholics paradise. Yeah. I traveled to the same places for the most part all the time. And I, I knew where the liquor stores were. I didn't have to use Yelp to find a liquor store half the time. Plus they're everywhere and grab my booze, go to my room. I'd sit there from the time I got into my room until I went to bed. How long did that go on for? It was less than a year, but it was, it was months for sure. And then it's like every week that went on, things just exponentially got worse. What do you mean? They got worse. It was drinking more. I would drink so much that I'd pass out in the afternoon. My wife would come home. She knew I had been drinking. I wasn't hiding it as well as I thought I could she say anything to you? She did. She brought up, you're destroying your health. Do you understand what you're doing to the kids? You know, they're worried about you. They're watching, you drink yourself to death.
Speaker 0 00:46:46 Kids ever say anything to, you
Speaker 2 00:46:48 Said things. My youngest son was the most vocal. He would find my bottles and he got rid of them. He dumped them out. He kind of learned my hiding spots,
Speaker 0 00:46:58 Ironic that you were the youngest and you watched that happen. He was the youngest watch that happen. And he dumped your bottles.
Speaker 2 00:47:05 You know, by this time two oldest kids were already out on their own. They were through college. My daughter was a sophomore in college in my youngest son was just going to, to college. So he was on his way out of the house. I don't know if that my fall started happening. I don't know if it was just a coincidence that my youngest was on his way out of the house. I don't know. I don't know if I just held it together long enough. I let it creep a little bit before he was officially out of the house and at school living on campus, he took the brunt of it. Cause he was around towards the end of my drinking when it was, when it was really bad. What did the end look like for you? Pete? I knew I was powerless over alcohol. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2 00:47:47 And what happened. I went out to run errands on a Sunday to run errands. What I did is I went to my local hardware store, probably bought light bulbs or a battery, but all I needed was the plastic bag from the hardware store. So when I walked in the door, my wife knew I went to the hardware store. The whole intention that day was I wanted to go up to the bar and drink vodka, which I was not allowed to do in my home. I went to the hardware store. I stopped at the bar on the way home. I wasn't there very long. I still have the receipt from that. You know, my last visit to the bar where I bought alcohol. My bill was almost $47 without the tip. You know, I wasn't there for hours. I was there for maybe an hour, hour and a half.
Speaker 2 00:48:29 I drove home to my neighborhood. It was a nice summer day. I drove up into the driveway and I don't know if I accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brake, or I don't know if God hit the gas pedal or what happened. But I drove into my garage door, brand new garage door. I mean, less than two months old, that moment I put my head down. I just remember thinking, God I'm done. Please help me. That was it. My wife came running out of the house. She heard a big crash. She came out and I remember her yelling at me. The window was up, but it was, I didn't hear anything. I couldn't hear what was coming out of her mouth or at least I don't remember hearing it. I just remember a silence, just thinking, what am I going to do? I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2 00:49:13 I had had a couple run-ins with police prior to that, without consequences. Like earlier that summer, I just kept saying, I knew it was a matter of time. Something bad's going to happen. I'm going to injure somebody. I'm going to kill somebody. Something bad is going to happen. Drove into that garage door. And I just thought, okay, this is a sign. This is going to be your last warning. Peak driving into this garage door was that's God saying, okay, this is it now. No more screwing around. That's when I tapped out. That's when I, I, I reached my point of surrender. I didn't get out of the car and get on my knees. I slumped over in my wheel and just, I said, I'm done. My wife had been going to meetings for people that are, have loved ones that are alcoholics. She had been talking to some friends of ours.
Speaker 2 00:50:04 One of whom had been sober for 17 or 18 years. And my wife was waiting for me to get to my point of surrender. She had stopped talking to me about it. She had stopped warning me about it at one point, maybe a week or two before I, that day, where I crashed into the door, she said I was drunk. And she just, she said, this has got to stop because something's going to change. I said, what do you want me to do? I'll do anything. She's like, you're not gonna like my answer. She told me after I had crashed into the house, she said, why don't you just go in and lay down? I went into our porch. I laid on the couch and I just, I fell asleep. I got up from the couch. She was out in the backyard and I walked out there.
Speaker 2 00:50:48 I looked at her and I just said, I have to go away. That's all I said. She told me this, you know, about a month after all this two months after this, she's like, I didn't know what you meant by that. I didn't know if it meant you needed to leave me. Or she said, I had no idea what you meant by. I had to go away. What I meant was I need to go somewhere and I need to get help. I was done living the way I was living. Pete's done. He's got to go away. Damn Pete. Well, we're going to have to go away for a second because Pete's about to get some help. Finally, pizza about to get some help. After 37, long years of drinking, it doesn't matter how long you drank for. There's always help waiting. Just got to ask for it. We'll be right back tune in next week for peak peels back the layers part to where Pete will talk about his and his hope as always. We have to pay credit where credit is due here. Staying authentic on authentic is always to open the show. You heard my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my nurse by muse. And to take us off today, pizza first, pick me in honey by R E M. Remember be good to yourself. It's important.
