Brenda did some reading about alcoholism in Fort Walton Beach.

How to tell if your significant other is a drunk.

How to get your significant other to stop drinking.

What to do if your significant other won't--or can't--stop drinking. How to live with him, how to leave him.

These were informed by Al Anon principles.

She didn't go to Al Anon, but she started practicing what they preached.

Don't nag, don't threaten, don't scold.

Be matter of fact about it.

You're both in denial, but if one of you stops buying into it, the other one's faith in the cover story is shaken.

Brenda didn't accuse me of being an alcoholic.

She didn't threaten to leave me if I didn't stop drinking.

She said she didn't like the affect my drinking was having on her life, and the lives of Owen and Balder.

If I could control my drinking, she would stay with me. If I couldn't, she was going to find a way to get out on her own, with the boys. Away from my drinking.

She started doing things she wanted to do, that I didn't want to do, because of my drinking, and stopped doing things she didn't want to do, but I wanted to do, because of my drinking, and started saying things like, "Well, that's because of your drinking."

It made me look at the consequences of my drinking in a new way.

And I tried to control my drinking.

I tried.

I kept doing things like wrecking U-Haul trucks, getting fired, getting arrested for drunk driving. But in the main I was trying my best. I wanted to control it.

Part of my punishment for drunk driving was having to attend Drunk Driver School, and to pay for the alcoholism professions to conduct the class.

I was having to pay for my own indoctrination.

I resented that.

For one thing, I thought they were taking money under false pretenses. They didn't know what they were talking about. Why, their tests to see if you had a problem with drinking were too powerful. They lumped me in with the real alcoholics.

If you had my problems you'd drink too.

Before I took the test I had to fill out a questionnaire.

The questionnaire asked if I'd ever lost a job due to drinking, owed money due to drinking, had trouble in my relationships due to drinking, had health problems due to drinking, had legal difficulties due to drinking.

I answered no to all of those questions. And thought I was being honest.

But Brenda's using Al Anon on me had made me start questioning my drinking. I had doubts. I was ready to listen.

Some people aren't. Some people go through Drunk Driver School and keep on drinking. The intervention doesn't work.

You have to be ready. You have to have hit your bottom.

I think I went to Drunk Driver School in August. I took a white chip in AA on November 11, 1977. The day Bill Wilson went on his last drunk. Armistice Day.

But my bottom was July 4.

I had been trying for months to cut down on my drinking, so I wouldn't have to quit entirely.

The weekend before the 4th of July I showed my ass so bad I vowed to quit drinking forever. I swore on all that was holy to me that I wouldn't drink.

I took Owen to Sopchoppy for a 4th of July parade. Brenda stayed at home with Balder.

I didn't drink all the way down, I didn't drink the whole time I was there, I didn't drink the whole way back.

But outside of town I pulled into a Minit Market and bought a quart of beer, knowing, that if I drank it, I would stop at the supermarket near the house and buy two tall six-packs of beer and be off on my 4th of July drunk, which lasted until my birthday, August 31.

When I came out of that store, unscrewed the lid, and tipped the bottle up, I knew the bottle owned me, body and soul.

I didn't know what to do about it, that there was hope, but I knew, in my guts, I was lost.

In Drunk Driver School, they said I couldn't control my drinking because tissue tolerance had set in. I was a drunk. A drink set off craving. I drank until I passed out.

But I could quit drinking entirely. By not taking that first drink.

I could get sober and stay sober, one day at a time, and get better, physically, mentally, and spiritually, by doing what it took to stay sober. Namely, not drink.

At the end of Drunk Driver School, they recommended that I attend an Alcohol Awareness Seminar, taught by alcoholism specialists at the Apalachee Mental Health Center.

I did.

At the end of that, I quit drinking.

I had a counselor, and he kept recommending I go to AA.

I didn't want to, but I did.

In November, I took a white chip. In AA.

I didn't take a drink for the next 20 years.

Q: What happened after 20 years?

A: I started drinking beer on the weekends.

Q: Do you recommend this?

A: No.

Q: Why do you do it?

A: Because I'm a drunk.

Q: Are you getting away with it?

A: No.

Q: Then why don't you go back to total abstinence?

A: I'm thinking about it. I probably will. I'm not drinking now.

I just drink when my mother dies, or when I am away from Brenda, with my brother Bill.

Q: Is Bill a drunk?

A: It's not my place to break his anonymity.

He told me he was. He doesn't deny it.

An important part of stopping is admitting that you are a drunk.

Q: What--do you have slips?

Do you allow yourself to have a slip?

A: I can't explain it, I'm not proud of it, I don't recommend it. I'm just telling you what happened.

I was a drunk, I quit, I didn't drink for 20 years.

I started drinking on weekends, I stopped doing that, but I do it on occasion.

The occasions are short and not close together.

But they happen.

Q: This makes me nervous.

A: Me too.

Q: What does Brenda think?

A: It makes her nervous.

And mad. It makes her mad.