About this Wolf

I work as a community aide and job coach to persons with disabilities with Todd Steven & Associates. And my second part time job is as a web master and graphics artist for a local retail store, The Oshkosh Shoppe. My side job is building web sites. Check out Wolf Running Web Design. I also provide emergency communications as a Ham Operator in my county serving as an Assistant Emergency Coordinator for ARES-RACES-SKYWARN. I have completed a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology. I hope to some day return to college for a Master's program in Counseling. My own needs for counseling eventually brought me to a new relation with spirituality. Through the experience, strength, and hope of others and the guidance and support of my Higher Power, I have come to know a new way of life.

I started drinking around age 7 or 8. Not just a sip from someone’s drink but when a friend and I got some Marines to buy us a couple quarts of beer and we went off in the woods and got drunk. After that, I drank whenever I could with the intent of getting that same buzz I got from that first quart of beer. For the rest of my life, I drank for that buzz and nothing else. When I drank at a party or with “friends,” it was about getting drunk and nothing to do with being “social.” A few years later, I started using drugs. Same thing… the first time I used, I got high and from then on I used to get high whenever possible. In later years, I sought drugs and alcohol as a way to escape the pain and fear of a life I did not understand. In short time, I was a teenage alcoholic and drug abuser. I joined the Army to escape my childhood, and for some time, I was a successful participant of life.

I had learned to love my father and be proud of the life he had lived. He was a great hero of three wars. I was able to overlook his alcoholism knowing that he had fought wars for the right to drink. I wanted him to be proud of me and I followed a shadow in search of his pride. I worked ever so hard to be the person that I thought he thought I should be. And in that journey, I got so far away from me; I had lost sight of myself and could no longer communicate with my soul.

After 12 years of a step-mother that always demeaned me saying I would never amount to anything and I would never get anywhere in life, I joined the Army for a twofold purpose. To prove to my stepmother that I could be something and to become a career soldier my father could be proud of. Bless her sole, my step mother was probably just trying to push me harder to be even better, nonetheless, "you will never amount to anything" proved to be one of the most damaging and discouraging voices in my head for many years to come.

I spent ten years in the Army and did everything I could to be the ultimate weapon my father could be proud of. Taking any training I could get into and scoring very high on MOS testing and graduating with honors from every training school or course I went to. There were a few covert missions along the way but we won't go any farther than that.

When I returned stateside from a tour in West Germany, I took leave and went back to Hawaii to show my parents my wife and kids and try to show my mom I had accomplished something in life. My father was very proud and gloated over us all. My step mom said my wife was a dumb hillbilly and my kids needed more discipline. She asked why I was only an E6 Staff Sergeant after 10 years if I was doing so great in the Army and if I really wanted my dad to be proud, I really should have joined the Navy like him instead of being a dumb Infantryman in the Army.

While on leave in Hawaii, I spent some time with my brother and his family. They were very kind and pleasant but he just wasn't the same guy I remembered when I was a teenager. The closeness we once had was gone and we never seemed to really connect again. Maybe it was just me. Already beat down by my mother's rejection, it was hard to be happy and enjoy the brother I once had.

I returned stateside from leave and was assigned to an elite training group teaching advanced rifle marksmanship to Infantry trainees. During my drive to be an ultimate weapon, I had qualified Expert or Sharpshooter with every weapon organic to the ground and mechanized Infantry's including medium and heavy machine guns, light, heavy, and guided rockets, grenade launchers, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, sub-machine guns, hand guns, and a range of special weapons including cross bows and explosives.

Shortly after leaving Hawaii, my career began to fall apart and within 3 years, I would be kicked out of the Army for drug and alcohol abuse and misconduct. That last visit would come to be the last time I probably would ever see my parents and brother.

Soon after being kicked out of the Army, my wife took our kids and went back to Louisiana. That was the end of my marriage and family.

I turned again to the bottles of whiskey and drugs and began a journey towards death. After 4 years of constant intoxication, death still seemed so far away. I made a decision to hasten it's arrival. It was on that night when I put a .357 Magnum to my head that The Spirit intervened with my intents. I did not release the hammer to propel a semi jacketed hollow point into my brain. I was ready to die; I didn't want to live that way anymore. But, it was not in my heart to sign a death warrant for the companion dog that came and pressed against my leg in those final seconds. She somehow knew the most critical moment to simply say without voice "I love you person companion, please do not go."

In the days that followed, I sought treatment to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction. In the 12-steps of AA and NA, I found and learned much more than I ever hoped for.

Today, I am happy to live and truly grateful to be an alcoholic in recovery. Through the Spirit, I have found acceptance of myself, a sense of serenity no drug could ever provide, and an understanding of life and myself that I could never have had.

How It Came To Be

There is much speculation and theory about how one becomes alcoholic. Some say there is a genetic link; some say it is a learned behavior. Some say it has to do with a hard childhood, some say it can develop from a single bad experience.

For me, it is insignificant as to what "made me" alcoholic and addict. Today, what is important is that I have found a new way of life. However, to satisfy the curious and follow in the way of "my story," I will tell of my past.

My parents separated before I was 5 and I lived with my mom until she died just before I turned six. During those first five years, there were a number of things that probably set me up to go down the drain in time. My father going away, me being molested by some older boys, a neighbor I liked blowing his head off with a shot gun, my mother dyeing, briefly living with a sister and brother-in-law I hardly knew and being sent away to Hawaii.

After my mom died, my father soon gained custody of my brother and I. He was a good man and a father as best he could be. A decorated war veteran and Pearl Harbor Survivor, he unknowingly suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (shell-shock). His disorder may have contributed to his alcoholism or perhaps the alcoholism contributed to the PTSD. Which ever, he was very quiet and withdrawn yet prone to violent outbursts. My brother and I loved him but, there would always be a wall.

My stepmother did her best to raise us two rebellious boys. I can't really say whether she was alcoholic or not but, in my recovery, I learned to recognize the extensiveness of her "dysfunction" and the emotional damage she did to me.

Not to say my father and/or stepmother were not good parents. I truly believe that they did the absolute best they could based on the best they knew how. Certainly, they both wanted to do the best they could to raise two boys whose formative years had been far from civil.

I joined the military like my brother had to get out and be on my own. I also wanted to be a hero like my father to "carry on" my father’s pride. I was a model soldier and managed to build an impressive service file. I excelled in many ways. I became a qualified "expert" in several areas through performance testing and obtained several specialty identifiers as an Infantry noncommissioned officer. Qualifying as an expert with most weapons organic to a mechanized infantry unit and qualifying with high scores in several specialty fields. Expert driver; wheeled, tracked, and amphibious. Nuclear, Biological, Chemical (NBC) specialist. Chemical, Biological, Radiological (CBR) Decontamination specialist. WARSAWPAC vehicle/weapon/equipment identification specialist. Radio/telephone operator. And the list goes on and on. My goal was to be a hero but there was one catch... I was in a peacetime Army. I got my self involved in a few covert missions that would later wreak havoc on my self-image. When no medals were awarded to show my father I complained and the answer was simple. These were covert missions... if they gave me a medal; they were saying we did it. Well duh! I developed a resentment towards the Army and society in general. It would be many years before I understood that part of that resentment was a projection of my disgust with myself. And that chapter goes on and on.

I abused alcohol and drugs for many years believing it was my right and macho and cool and a proper display of my image. I never realized that I was self medicating my emotional pain and running from myself. Somewhere along the line, I crossed over to physical addiction to alcohol and the Valium the veteran’s hospital gave me after I was kicked out. I could not sleep unless I was intoxicated. Nor could I steady my hands enough to work or function unless I was intoxicated. I no longer drank or drugged because I wanted to... I had to drink and drug to stay alive and function.

And finally came the day that I just did not want to live anymore. I had few choices. Drink, drug and live in misery, not drink and drug and face the pain and not have excuses for being crazy, or die. I took my .357 magnum handgun and replaced the standard bullets with semi jacketed hallow points. I sat on the couch and put the gun to the corner of my jawbone and prepared to see just what really was on the other side. While the tears flowed freely down my cheeks (I really didn't want to die, I just couldn't continue to live), I asked God that if he was really there to please forgive me for what I was about to do. And I asked him to make it so it was not painful to those I loved but did not know how to love. I thought my good-bye to those who were important to me and prayed them to have no problem with my passage. It was time. I took a very deep breath and held it, closed my eyes, prepared for the loud bang and possible pain and was interrupted. Something was pushing against the side of my leg. I opened my eyes and looked down to find my dog pushing her shoulder against my calf. She was looking up at me with what I perceived to be sadness in her eyes. In my mind I heard her say, "please don't." I don't know or even care today if it was God's voice or my unconscious or an alter or inter-species communication. It gave me one more chance. The chance that would soon bring rapid and wonderful changes in my life. Today I want to live. Today I do not drink or drug and I am DAMN happy. Today I have friends and I care about them and they care about me. Today... life is good.

This new way of life has come to me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous & Narcotics Anonymous and through the compassionate help of those people who gather around those tables. And the compassion and caring of the nurses, staff, and counselors at St. Agnes hospital in Fond du Lac, 1990. And the compassionate help, guidance and teachings of a living angel named Fran S. and the men's group that met on highway 41 across from a plant nursery. And the associates and interns in Fran's life. And "Headhunter," the Peshtigo judge who planted a seed as well as the many others who tried for so long to help me see. And the county counselors who banged there heads against my walls. All of them that struggled to help me find my bottom. And all of them who were compassionate to help me find my way back. May the Spirit send warmth into their hearts as you read these words. Because it is sad that some of them never will just because they don't know these words are here.

There is indeed hope for any woman, man, or youngster who wants to break the chains of addiction. May the Spirit comfort them now and bring them one more step closer to recovery as you read these words.
Please, take a moment and pray for them now.
Bless you.

They need only be honest to themselves and those who would help, open their heart and soul to a Higher Power, open their mind to the possibilities, and open their arms to be hugged and received by those of us who will have them. May the Spirit give one more the strength as you read these words. May one more have a chance.

Miiguich,
All my relations.
Wolf

More of my story:

I didn't understand or even believe that I was an alcoholic or drug addict: Misunderstanding Life

 Click here to get an email when I continue more of my story.

Lotusbud's Circle of Prayer