My Story: What I Was, What Happened and What I Am, 0317 ALBJ, 78 The Alabama Lawyer 123 (2017)
| Author | Jim R., J. |
Jim R., J.
My name is “J.J.,” and I am an alcoholic.
I am an Alabama lawyer. I am 50 years old. I was born into a “normal” two-parent home. My father was a college dropout who worked two or three jobs until sometime after I graduated high school. He had a “steady paycheck and benefits” job, and he started his own business on the side in the ’70s. That business eventually boomed and he did quite well until the market crashed around 2007.
My mother was a stay-at-home wife and mother despite her college degree. My school years were spent growing up in suburbia with my parents and younger brother. It was a nice neighborhood. We played with neighborhood kids. My parents socialized with neighbors.
It was a good childhood. I got the hand-me-down family cruiser for my first car at age 16. My parents paid for my college. There was no abuse in my home growing up that I saw or recall.
Drinking in my home was not hidden, though. My dad had a beer or two in the evening from time to time, or drinks while socializing. My mom would have a glass or two of wine. I learned to like beer by occasionally stealing sips of my dad’s when I was young. I only saw my father drunk one time in my entire life. As a kid, I saw my mother get “tipsy,” but never sloppy drunk. She did later on in life, though, and it worsened over time. She has admitted to me she thinks she’s an alcoholic, but she is untreated. Her father was an alcoholic, and a violent one.
I had my first drink when I was 13. My best friend and I got someone to buy us some beer and we drank a six-pack. I don’t recall getting drunk that time, but I do recall a feeling of “fitting in.” I remember that at every significant party, concert or weekend event in high school and college alcohol was involved, or we tried to involve it. There were a few times I got drunk before school, as well.
When I turned 16, I got my first job working in an ice cream parlor. One night the owner’s nephew, who worked with me, brought a bottle of scotch to work. We all took turns holding our nose and taking swigs, and got pretty drunk at work. The hangover was horrible. The owner found out, and I got fired the next day. My very first real job ended due to alcohol involvement.
I played sports in high school, but was not really athletic. I was once at a tournament in Montgomery with some other teammates. We were all 15 to 18 years old. A group of us decided that the oldest guy, who had a fake ID, would get us some beer, and we’d have some fun the night before the tournament. I was one of the oldest, and participated in the purchase. We were all caught, and dismissed or forced to withdraw from the tournament. One of my cohorts was favored to win his bracket in this state tournament; the fact that the number one seed had to suddenly withdraw without reason even made the local papers.
When I was 19, I started working in a very popular bar in Birmingham. I was a pretty recognizable face among the night club...
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