My A.A. Story

My name is Jeremy and I am an alcoholic and an addict. I have been clean and sober now almost 5 years. December 9th 2006 will be my 5th anniversary. This is my second time around “on the wagon.” Had I remained clean and sober from my first sobriety which began on August 23rd, 1994, I would now have accumulated 12 years of 24 hours, one day at a time.

Alcoholism was a problem in my family, not so much the drugs. I found that on my own. Growing up in an alcoholic house was problematic, because no one wanted to admit that there was a problem. Denial was a fine art in my home. And it is not my place to call my parents alcoholics, but I reserve the right to say that they were.

When I was tall enough to reach the kitchen counter I learned how to mix my father’s favourite after work drink. Alcohol was a presence in my house, and it lubricated many a night, and was the cause for much of the abuse my father heaped on my mother, my brother and mainly on myself.

I drank my way through high school, to be popular and to be noticed, you hung with the right people and you attended all the right parties, and you hobnobbed with the best families who could provide you with high end liquor on holiday occasions. I loved the drink. It helped me cope with my past, and my abuse. Although in hind sight, I don’t know if I would have gotten help, even though it was all around me. A memory that still haunts me is that at my home parish church there was a meeting of AA.

And only when I grew up did that “sign” make sense to me that was on the door of one certain classroom. Only people in recovery will understand what that “sign” was. I ponder the thought of what it would have been like, had I attended one of those meetings way back when; I am talking about high school. I know people in my life today that have been sober as long as I have been alive; we call them “old timers.”

I started seeing a shrink in my later teen years, because I had realized by then that being gay was something that I was, it was not a problem, but I had to learn how to integrate and get “into community” so to speak. His suggestion was as such. He told me that in order to find my own; I had to seek them out “gay folk” at a local gay bar. That bar was the infamous “Uncle Charlie’s.” This is where I came out first, and this locale became a haunt later on in my gay life, after my Odyssey around the state of Florida. He told me to go in, sit at the bar, order and drink and that “things would proceed as they would.” You see “the drink” was the motivating and lubricating “factor” in my acceptance of and integration into gay society.

The more I drank, the better I looked or was that, the more I drank, the better you looked? Or maybe it was this, the more I drank the less self conscious I would be that I had stepped out of my comfort zone of heterosexual socialization and I walked head first into a world that was alien to me. There was no one to teach me the dos and don’ts. I was quite “the dish” in my younger years, and that was my ticket to ride, so to speak.

Alcohol became my constant companion. The local bar scene was something that I looked forward to, it became a nightly event. My alcoholism was being finely tuned with only the best alcohol and introduced me to some of the most unique relationships in my life.

My childhood obsession with the drink was only magnified as I grew into adulthood. I could put away copious amounts of alcohol; it’s a wonder that the drink did not kill me much earlier in my life. I did some incredibly stupid things under the influence of alcohol. I learned very quickly how to navigate back streets and watch the lines in the road, so as to avoid accidents. I learned how to get through sobriety check points with charm and ease. I find it pure insanity how bad it really got in the end. I hurt a lot of people and I ruined my reputation and destroyed relationships because of my drinking.

I would dance with sobriety for a while, but sober the first time was lonely and difficult for me. I got sober in 1994 the first time, and I got really sick, medically. From 1994 to 1999, I was so sick, that friends had keys to my apartment and they would come and go as they pleased, sleeping on my sofa, just to make sure I would not die and that I would eat on a daily basis.

There were crucial men in my life at this point in time, David and his sidekick Logan. They were some of my staunchest supporters. We had a love hate relationship for years. Being gay in Miami was dog eating dog business. Egos and attitudes were easily bruised in those days. You could have friends one day and enemies the next, if you bought into the mind and ego game in the gay community. I have to say that had it not been for a group of friends back then I would not have survived.

We remained friends throughout my first stab at sobriety. After four years of sobriety and learning how to cope with and live with an AIDS diagnosis, I had suffered enough. My sex life was the pits, I was lonely, and had no desire to be alone. So began the worst decision I every made in my life.

I believed for a long time, as I was programmed by my parents that I was a mistake and that I should never have been born, so what would it matter if I drank and used and what if I died, no one who mattered would miss me. Ah, he’s just a queer and not part of the family, so nobody gave a damn whether I lived or died and neither did I.

I had no thought about personal safety and I was hell bent on self destruction. That’s what the disease of addiction does to you; it takes away your desire to live and points you towards the pits of hell.

I cannot stress this enough. There is no room for self destruction and addiction in your life if you are HIV positive or have AIDS. With everything you have to worry about now, in the daily living of life and dealing with each specific situation, because you know already, none of us live exactly the same life; addiction is NOT a solution and never will be. This is experience talking to you now.

There is no absolute answer in the greatest drunk or the best high. They will not make you feel any better about yourself; they will not help you find love, acceptance or validation. What addiction does give you is denial, alienation and self destruction. There is so much more to living than wasting your life destroying your body and you mind. When you use one does not think clearly and as happened to me, I made some seriously stupid decisions.

Never ever make a move to meet a stranger under the guise of a “love connection.” Some people are not who they seem to be in person, and before you know it you are in a situation that you are hopelessly caught in and if you are not careful you could end up dead. I made a series of life threatening choices during the years of 1998 and 2000. Choices that I never want to talk about ever again.

Suffice to say, I remember them, and they almost killed me. Enough said about that.

My best friends helped me through a very tough time for a while, and I took advantage of that good grace, and for that I will be eternally sorry for. And I have shared that with them over the years since.

In the summer of 2000, I finally moved into a one room studio apartment on Miami Beach where I lived for almost 3 years. I was surviving in a way only the strongest HIV survivors could, desperate times sometimes require desperate measures. The U.S. Government made it terribly difficult to live on what disability paid out. It was a monthly toss up, do I eat this month or do I pay for medication. You find your way or you die.

I was still using and drinking throughout this period. I had things to do during this time. My friends made sure that I did not remain idle for too long. I was not drinking nightly, but I began to binge drink one night a week, so for all the drinks I missed during the week, I surely made up for on Saturday nights. That binging was my weekly attempt to “break into” the South Beach boys club, which was until September 11th, 2001.

We all know what happened on that day, as I related to you earlier in this book. My alcoholism got sparse through the end of 2001. And I eventually got clean and sober once again.

I was praying to God by this point, I really wanted to stop. I was miserable and my drinking was not helping me get anywhere in my life. I uttered three prayers during the month of November. One, please God give the hangover I won’t forget, two, put an alcoholic into my path, and three get me to a meeting.

Oprah was doing the “Get Real” challenge with Dr. Phil post 9-11 and I followed along intensely. During my daily occupational therapy I would sit and watch Oprah with my neighbours and friends. I was journaling and I followed along. I eventually met that “alcoholic” I prayed for and he got me to my first meeting on December 9th 2001. God hears every prayer that we utter and even those we keep to ourselves.

I moved North to Montreal in 2002 in search of my heritage and family history, what I have attained today is more than I ever dreamed of and much more than I ever expected. It pays to know where you come from, because you never know when you might happen upon some family secret that may set you free and send you to places that you never dreamed.

All I know is that when I arrived in Montreal, I set out to plot my success one day at a time and one interview at a time. I found a place to live, and I went to meetings sometimes two or three a day in the beginning. I found a very fine doctor and got myself involved in my community. I love my life and everything in it. I am clean and sober and that is thanks to a power greater than myself, the minions of folk who took care of me then and take care of me now. I built the life I now live from a one room basement studio in Verdun to a 17th story Apartment overlooking Westmount in Montreal.

I learned now to survive in a foreign country and I learned to live with my fellows, respecting them and their heritage, as I did as a young person living in Miami. I found over my lifetime that if you have the opportunity to share in another’s culture and lifestyle and can add that uniqueness to your own existence that makes you a much better rounded international member of the world. There is more to life than waving the flag and touting the wonders and might of the U.S. of A. The more one knows about the world you live in the better you will be prepared to take part in her care. There are so many people out here for you to meet and learn from. Never limit yourself to your one city existence. Get out and see the world whenever you can.

This brings me to the pinnacle period of my life. I went to a meeting one afternoon and ran into this unique young man, whom it seemed to me, followed me from meeting to meeting around Montreal. I am sure he has a different take on that to share with you. From the moment we met, we were inseparable.

We had many a date at a café called Calories, here in Westmount over our courtship. And he would tell you that that is where he also rejected me the first time. But eventually, he saw the error in that thought and gave in to my charm and desire. We have been together since the day we met, and this year we will celebrate our second wedding anniversary on November 20th 2006.

Being gay, I thought was a big deal, when I was younger. I though that I would never have the life I now live. I walked through many a year in the United States watching gay men and women get bashed and ridiculed and targeted. We fought tooth and nail through those years to help all you young gay boys and girls attain a better life for yourselves.

Much blood has been spilled and many lives have been taken to give you what you have today. And I can say I was part of that “change.” Here in Canada, I witness and was part of a society that passed gay rights legislation, and as well, gay marriage was legalized here provincially in Quebec as well as in other provinces and some territories.

This past summer we saw Gay Marriage Legislation passed nationally in 2005, in Parliament. I never thought that I would ever be part of a country let alone a society that respected us as equals in society being gay and now married.

So do not give up your fight to free America from its religious and sexual intolerance. Times must change or societies will crumble under its own arrogance, insanity and intolerance. Walk tall and be heard and do not give up the fight for gay rights wherever you live. This next chapter was written by my husband on our marriage. I think it is important to include it in this book, so you know what we went through to have the Big Fab Gay Wedding we had. So without further ado I present my husband Peter’s wedding chapter.