David Feherty, Tom Watson and me (a revisit)

The following is a repeat post from five years ago. Its theme is still applicable for many today. Please share it with those who may need it.

I am an alcoholic, yet I am approaching the twelfth (now seventeenth) anniversary of my last drink. I bring this up today as I learned in an interview yesterday that David Feherty, a retired golfer, golf announcer and truly comical person, is also an alcoholic, along with some other demons he has to manage.

Several things about Feherty’s interview with Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel are worth noting. First, he credits his second wife for her tough love – after a final straw, she said you have 30 days to get clean or I am gone.

He also credits Tom Watson, one of golf’s greatest players, whose own career was almost derailed by alcoholism. As Feherty was interviewing Watson, the latter asked Feherty if he was alright. Feherty said he was not, but asked how could he tell? Watson said “I saw it in your eyes.” He then answered Feherty’s question of what did he see? Watson said bluntly, “I saw myself.”

Watson invited Feherty to his home and helped him through managing his demons. Feherty was sober for ten years, but fell off the wagon when his son took his own life after fighting a losing battle with the same demons his father faced. It should be noted Feherty’s alcoholism masked that he was clinically depressed and bipolar. His son inherited the problems. After renewing the fight, Feherty has returned to being sober.

Alcoholism or any addiction are tough enemies. You never fully defeat them. You put a lid on them, but they still simmer on the back of the stove. Over time, the heat is turned down, but it never is fully extinguished. In my case, I still want to have a drink, but it is a fainter flame today.

The key lesson I learned from a colleague, whose husband fought alcoholism, is to say this mantra – I am not going to drink today. This is a key reason recovering alcoholics know how many days they have been sober. The other piece of advice is to find a substitute for the alcohol. It may be green tea, fruit, fruit juice, near-beer, tonic or soda water or a piece of candy. Now, for me, it is hot tea and all kinds of fruit, dried or fresh. (Update: Heineken now makes a great non-alcoholic beer.)

Life is hard. It is not uncommon for some people to use some form of anesthetic to sand the edges off difficulty. If you think you may have a problem, you do. Be honest with yourself, first, but be honest with your spouse or partner and your doctor. Most addicts lie to all of the above.

People ask me what was my trigger to change? Another colleague’s wife, who was as vivacious and funny as David Feherty, died from complications due to alcoholism. She was only 59, one year less than I am today. I was a train wreck waiting to happen. So, I got off the train. It was and still is hard. But, remember the mantra, I am not going to drink today. Then, don’t and say it again tomorrow.

A few resolutions for all to consider

Resolutions. The definition not in the dictionary are resolutions made for the New Year are meaningless lists that will fall to the wayside. As Exhibit A, workout places see an increase in annual membership every January only to see fewer bodies in the place come February.

With this in mind, let me throw out a few resolutions for us all to consider:

– let’s start with a few kind words to people serving you or checking you out of store, even if you think they don’t deserve it.

– to this latter point, please remember you are no day at the beach either. Often the least tolerant among us require the most tolerance.

– if you don’t like exercise, try walking more. After dinner, in the morning, parking further away from the store, not driving to some stores, etc. – just walk a little. It helps with digestion, aerobics, weight, libido, et al and it is more sustainable than running.

– try to eat fewer or less of white foods – the ones loaded with carbs. Potato’s, pasta, rice, bread, etc. This will dramatically help with weight loss and limit exposure to pre-diabetes.

– try to stop one bad habit. If you smoke, find other options. If you vape, please stop. If you drink, find alternatives – fruits, tonic or soda water, non-alcoholic beer, hard candies.

– finally, vote. Too many don’t want you to vote as it assures they will win. That is disingenuous. So, vote. No candidate is perfect, but some are less imperfect than others.

Well, try to do a couple of the above. They just might help.

Replacing a bad habit with a good one

I was reading a post by M.L.Davis at the suggestion of our friend Roger regarding good things that happen when you make writing a habit. I have included a link to her blog below. As I mentioned to her, it reminded me of a book my niece suggested for me when I was discussing breaking a bad habit of mine called “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. I wrote a summary about the book in the link below.

Many of my older readers know that I am an alcoholic. But, I have not had a drink in going on sixteen years. A blog I wrote on my sixth anniversary remains by far my most frequented blog (link provided below). I think we all suffer from a bad habit or two that we would love to change. I believe that is the reason for the post’s relative popularity. My reasons for change were the wife of a colleague dying from complications from alcoholism and the recognition I was a train wreck waiting to happen.

The best piece of advice I received came from another colleague as we waited in an airport restaurant/ bar for our planes in Cincinnati. When she noticed me not ordering a drink early on in my sobriety, she said her husband went through this. She then said he used the mantra “I am not going to drink today.” There is a reason alcoholics can count the days of sobriety. It is a daily struggle.

Even today, there is a faint whisper of wanting a drink. It usually occurs during certain trigger moments, which Duhigg references in his book. My greater triggers were getting home from work and grilling out on Sunday. Unwinding from a stressful day sent me down an easy path to drinking. And, watching football or golf, while starting the grill became a cue for Happy Hour.

Recognizing these triggers is a way to change the habit. You have to substitute a good habit for the bad one. My good ones were fruit juices, popsicles, and tonic water. The alcoholic brain craves something sweet, so this allowed me to respond to the craving. Non-alcoholic beer helped some, but those added more calories than I wanted.

Regardless of your bad habit, identify its triggers and what happens next. I recall from the book about a worker who snacked too much at work. His cue was going to the restroom that took him past the breakroom. When he realized this, he changed his route and went for a quick walk.

The book is a good read. The attached post does highlight a few examples and teachings, but falls short of what Duhigg’s writings instruct. And, if you are an alcoholic or know someone, please offer the final link below. I have heard good feedback on it as I share what helped me with my problem.

4 Things That Happen When You Make Writing a Habit

https://musingsofanoldfart.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-power-of-habit/

https://musingsofanoldfart.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/six-years-alcohol-free-but-still-want-to-drink/

Ides of September, 2023

With 30 days in the month of September, we officially close out the first half of the month today. Happy Friday to boot. Here are a few Friday odds and ends to ponder as you look forward to the weekend.

Politicians who threaten or condone the threat of physical violence should be suspended until they undergo anger management. We cannot have our elected “so-called” leaders acting like thugs regardless of the height of their position. We deserve better than this.

To this point, if a politician wants to be taken seriously, then they should conduct themselves in a serious minded manner. I truly have little interest in hearing the blatherings of an elected official or candidate who cites propaganda and beats on their chest. Please remember, the louder the voice doesn’t make them worth listening to, it just means they are loud.

Please do not drink and drive this weekend. Drinking is fine, but don’t get behind the wheel of a car. I once bailed a relative out of jail the morning after who was too intoxicated and caused a wreck, which fortunately did not hurt anyone. The first thing he told me was not thanks, but what took me so long? Really?


My most frequented post is about my battle not to drink anymore, which is now past sixteen years. Trust me when I say I drank a lifetime of booze by the time I quit. I was a home drunk, imbibing heavily after I got home from work. I was a train wreck waiting to happen and stopped when I learned of an acquaintance who died from complications due to alcoholism when she was only age 59. The mantra I used is “I am not going to drink today.”

Finally, Aristotle advised that we humans are creatures of habit. In his book “The Power of Habit,” Charles Duhigg noted the way to change a bad habit is to know its trigger and substitute a better habit. One example is an overeater would walk past the break room at work on the way back from the lavatory. So, instead of noshing on cookies or donuts, he started taking a longer walk around the complex. He lost weight as a result. The trigger was the route back from the loo.

Thinking of the above actions, I am reminded of the humorous advice from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” as quoted by the Abraham Lincoln character which gives it gravitas, “Be excellent to one another and…party on dude!” The caveat is to have a designated driver or limit the imbibing.

Now, sixteen years without a drink, but I still have that faint desire

The following is an updated post that was first published on my 6th anniversary of not drinking. The message still holds true, although the urge is still there but fainter.

I am an alcoholic. Yet, today is the sixteenth anniversary of my last drink. I have learned a lot about myself along the journey, but don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, stopping a habit is hard work. The thing I most learned is from an old colleague where we were waiting for our respective flights in an airport restaurant in Cincinnati, shortly after I stopped drinking. She gave me the best piece of advice courtesy of her husband who had stopped earlier that I will share with you now – I am not going to drink today.

You see, while I do not drink anymore, sixteen years later, I still want one. The urge is still there as a faint echo at times and as a stronger urge at other times. Usually, the stronger urges occur when I do something like cook on the grill on Sunday afternoon while watching the golf tournament, football, etc. As an alcoholic, you eventually don’t screw around, so I was drinking scotch on the rocks. Many at a time. Yet, with that said, there are many people with habits off other kinds of drinks. Chris Mullen, the great NBA basketball player spoke of being a beer alcoholic. Tom Watson, the famous golfer, almost derailed his career with wine and scotch.

Two things happened that caused me to do something about my problem while I still could. My doctor told me that taking action before it was too late was a major plus in my favor. Many wait until the train wheels come of the track.The first thing is the wife of a colleague of mine, who I knew and was one of the most vivacious people you would ever meet, died in her late fifties from complications due to alcoholism. To hear the diagnosis after she passed, when no one else knew she had an issue, was staggering. I wanted to see my kids become adults and witness their many life events. I wanted to be there for my wife. I knew I had that problem.

The second thing is what I started noticing at work late in the day. You see, I was what is called a “home drunk.” I would only drink when I got home after work and on weekends. Being a big, tall guy, I could hold my liquor, so I would easily down five or six doubles a night. I mentioned the scotch on the rocks. The scotch and waters drinks diminished the amount of water used over time until the water was no longer necessary. What I noticed late in the day at work is my body would begin craving the alcohol and I would get over-heated and red-faced. I was already on blood pressure medication in a stressful job, so I was a train wreck waiting to happen. It did not help matters that my father was an alcoholic before he quit late in life.

So, I had to stop. I started with a drug called Campril which is designed to wean you of your craving. I did that for a few weeks, but stopped that as well. The key is to substitute a new habit for the old one. If you do not, you will eventually drift back into the old one. I am now a green tea aficionado and drink a lot of fruit juices. At parties, I don’t mind ordering a nonalcoholic beer or tonic water. I don’t mind being around people who drink. Plus, you need to exercise as your sweet tooth can get out of hand due to the craving for sugar. But, the key is the lesson that my friend shared with me in the Cincinnati airport – I am not going to drink today.

It is a daily journey. The craving is still there. You just have to say, I am not going to drink today. People trying to stop drinking know the number of days they have not had a drink. This is the reason. It is a daily struggle. Over time, it becomes weeks, then months and now years of tracking the absence of alcohol use. It is hard, but it can be done. This is one reason people find places like Alcoholic Anonymous. The support group is amazingly helpful. I chose not to go that route, but that was a personal choice. The stressful job did not go away and, most importantly, I wanted to be there for my wife and children, so not going to AA was a time issue for me. If I had not stopped, I would have become a liability. Plus, it has given me a platform to talk openly with my kids about being aware of their medical history in me and my father.

A couple of other benefits of not drinking is your weight (again with the caution about the sweets) is easier to maintain. Alcohol has a lot of calories, so when you don’t drink, you can lose weight. The other is the money. Alcohol is an expensive habit. Take the time to add up what you spend per week on alcohol – the beer, wine and hard liquor. I estimated I was spending over $6,000 per year on alcohol. That can add up. Plus, the other stuff goes away and your health improves

Please feel free to share this with others who may have my problem. They should start with being truthful with themselves, their spouses and their doctors. Doctors have said when a patient tells them how much they drink, the doctor knows when the patient is understating the amount. Tell the doctor the truth. He or she cannot help you if you don’t. Do something while you can. It is hard, but if you do try to stop, remember these words – I am not going to drink today.

Friday follies and foibles Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo. For a no-longer-drinker, have a Corona or margarita for me. Those days are long behind me, thank goodness. Just a few miscellaneous follies and foibles to start the celebration.

I saw where The Donald is considering testifying in his rape trial. The judge has given him until Sunday at 5 pm to decide. Oh, I hope he does. When your history is one of making things up, getting in front of a judge and jury is not the best action Trump could take. An attorney once said he got Trump to change thirty or so statements during one deposition to avoid perjury. One deposition – 30 or so lies.

Speaking of lawsuits, I am delighted to see Disney suing the autocratic governor of Florida for infringing on their business. The governor is picking on the largest tourism destination in a state run by sales tax revenue using them as a scapegoat for wokeness, which many cannot define. The term is used as a weapon like any name calling term, but at its heart it is good to be universally accepting and supportive of all people’s rights. To me, this is just one of the many infringements the governor and his party are imposing on people.

Between, DeSantis and his twin Greg Abbott in Texas, two of the largest states in the US are so poorly governed. Abbott does not get the national press DeSantis gets, but he makes a similar habit of not taking criticism well, saying derogatory things and infringing on the rights of those who do not look like our Europeans immigrants that came here.

There are imperfect people in the Democrat party, but I can argue policy with them or ask why they have not followed through on campaign promises? Trump created a bigger mess at the southern border than existed before he became president, but Joe Biden has not made things better. We need to hold him to what he said he would do, as we are not holding to our ideals as we make it very difficult to come here.

Finally, we need to deal with our debt problem, but not paying our bills is not the solution. It is the result. We need serious fact based discussion on a variety of solutions including raising revenue and cutting expenses. Grandstanding changes as the Republicans in the House have done is not the way to go about this. We should remind Republicans, they are not very good at solving our debt problem especially when in charge. Think George W. Bush cutting taxes to eliminate a surplus budget and Donald Trump cutting taxes to increase the debt by $2 trillion. Anyone can cut taxes, but we have to pay did things and watch spending both.

Adding a gun to a mix of testosterone and alcohol yields unwise and lethal behavior

In an article by Edwin Rios in The Guardian called “Texas man fatally shoots five neighbors after noise complaint, sheriff says,” the following paragraphs tell an all-true and common story in America.

“After neighbors complained about the noise he was making, a Texas man went next door with an AR-15-style rifle and shot them, killing five people – including an eight-year-old child – as well as wounding three others at a home in Cleveland, Texas, on Friday night.

Law enforcement patrolling the community more than 40 miles outside of Houston were searching for Francisco Oropeza, 38, who had been intoxicated and fled the scene, the sheriff of San Jacinto county, Greg Capers, told reporters on Saturday.”

Alcohol affects judgment and seems to remove the filter in the brain that stops people from making extremely poor decisions. Testosterone adds to the cocktail, as a drunk male is not the best judge of situations, as the worst of male behavior can more easily appear. Note, I am not giving drunk women a hall pass, but as a 64 year old man, I have witnessed some very unflattering male behavior when heavy drinking is involved.

Yet, when you add access to a gun, then these two ingredients become more toxic and can be lethal. This is a key reason allowing concealed carry of guns is so scary, as the lethal cocktail becomes more possible.

In short, five people, including a child, are dead because the noisy, drunk man had a gun. If he was just a noisy, drunk man, he could have still been offended by being asked to be quieter, yet no one would be dead. He would have likely gotten his lights punched out, at worst, as a drunk man is not the best of fighters. Yet, even a drunk dumb ass can fire a gun.

I am reminded of a man who was drunk at a college football game in Raleigh and was driving dangerously in the parking lot after the game. When two men stopped his car and asked him to be mindful of the kids and adults in the parking lot, the man went home, retrieved his gun and came back and shot the two men. These men stopped him from vehicular manslaughter and a DUI, but he decided to up the ante and murder them.

Although, I don’t know if intoxicated individuals were involved, I just read last night eleven people were shot at a party in a South Carolina park. I don’t know if any of the people died, but they are likely just lucky. It is sad that any outing, especially on weekends, can be dangerous. But, when people get shot in their own home for living next to a noisy, drunk neighbor, that is even more scary.

People who follow this blog know I try not to curse in print, so my reference above is unusual. But, continuing on, we Americans need to ask our legislators to stop being dumb asses and do something very tangible about gun violence. In Tennessee, the legislators fired two fellow legislators who were strongly advocating better gun governance – instead of acting to pass better gun governance, they fired the complainers. Really?

In fact, I will keep the legislators who are blocking action in my thoughts and prayers and maybe they will remember they are parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and act. But, unlike the less than judicious folks in the Tennessee legislature, the actions need to be to improve gun governance not punish those who are advocating for it.

Sunday morning comin’ down

Good morning one and all. It is a good day for frogs and ducks here. At least the soggy morning is knocking the pollen out of the air. Let me offer a quick advert for the generic versions of the Flonase spray. It works wonders here in our city of trees that send the pollen into the air.

Here a few random thoughts for this soggy Sunday morning.

With kudos to Kris Kristofferson, here is select stanza from one of his best songs “Sunday morning comin’ down:”

“Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day”

Sunday morning comes early after drinking much of the night before. Having been a single man, I can very much relate to the line “And found my cleanest dirty shirt.”

I am glad I don’t have to face those kinds of mornings anymore having quit alcohol going on sixteen years. The worst times, though, were late in the workday, when your body starts to crave the alcohol and your face turns red and you sweat. I do not miss those days, although I should say there remains the faintest of echoes of that craving even after fifteen plus years.

Speaking of drinking, one has to be drunk, stoned or high, to believe some of the BS coming out of certain politicians and opinion show hosts’ mouths. If people are still believing the horse manure that one particular opinion host (who has confessed gaslighting his audience) is spewing they need to either stop (or start) drinking. Sadly, I read some of these gaslit folks are ignoring the gaslighting admissions and believing his whitewashing about the “tourism” that went on January 6, 2021.

I also read the head of House committee to investigate “stuff,” who is known for his bullying and deceitful actions, is floundering. Apparently, the people he is investigating are more prepared than his committee is and are more prone to tell the truth. This committee head was rightfully denied membership on the House Select Committee looking into the January 6 insurrection as he had a conflict of interest with the investigation. Unlike that committee, his committee is throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks.

Finally, it takes a lot of effort to so quickly fall into a hole and cover yourself with dirt. A newly elected congressman from New York continues to have revealed his past lies, sins, alleged crimes and actual crimes that he failed to be forthcoming about. It won’t take much longer, but his congressional career is close to an end. He should resign before he is recalled by the local Republicans (his own party). Why these stories were not vetted beforehand is beyond me. I am talking about the party he represents vetting him, not the opposition. Not unlike the Catholic Church turning a blind eye to pedophile priests, it damages the whole body when people like this go unchallenged by the leaders.

Again, Democrats are far from perfect, but I can argue policies, problems and solutions with Democrats all day. With Republicans, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the stuff espoused as the truth. We need a viable conservative voice in our country, but until the party fixes itself, this vintage is not it.

Noble – a movie about a real hero named Christina Noble

My wife and I like to explore movies that ran beneath the radar. One called “Noble” caught our eye and it was well worth the watch, as it is a true story about a relatively unknown hero.

Per Wikipedia, “Noble is a 2014 film written and directed by Stephen Bradley about the true life story of Christina Noble, a children’s rights campaigner, charity worker and writer, who founded the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation in 1989. It stars Deirdre O’Kane, Sarah Greene, Brendan Coyle, Mark Huberman and Ruth Negga.

The film is set in Vietnam in 1989, fourteen years after the end of the war. Christina Noble flies into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), a country ‘that she wouldn’t be able to show you on a map.’ With a few dollars, her own hard-won courage, she is about embark on a life calling. The film explores her tough upbringing in Dublin and her early adult life in the UK. It is the inspirational true story of a woman who believes that it only takes one person to make a difference.”

Per The Guardian article called “Christina Noble: the woman who transformed the lives of 700,000 children,” by Joanna Moorhead, here is a quick summary of Noble.

“We all have dreams, but Christina Noble had a dream that was to transform not just her own life, but that of the lives of 700,000 children (and counting). At the height of the Vietnam war, in the 1970s, Christina went to bed after watching the news and dreamed she could go there and make a difference.

At the time she was raising three children of her own in Birmingham, working all hours as a waitress and coping with the fallout from an abusive marriage. She wasn’t rich, she wasn’t highly educated, she knew next to nothing about Vietnam and what was happening there and she had no skills that might have singled her out as someone who could do something useful in a country thousands of miles away. When she called an aid agency to tell them about her dream and to offer her services, they listened politely and said they would call back. Unsurprisingly, they never did.

The aid agency people weren’t to know it, but there was one qualification Christina had for the work she was volunteering for. She had endured a childhood of appalling suffering and from that had sprung a passion to help other children. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a gutter in Dublin or Ho Chi Minh City, it’s still a gutter,’ she says when we meet to talk about a film that has been made about her life. ‘What I want to do is get children out of the gutter because it’s no childhood at all – every child deserves love and cuddles and kindness and warm food and a bed, and every child has the right not to be afraid.’”

In today’s time, where we look to superior athletes and celebrities as heroes, it is awe-inspiring to see a real hero. Noble’s heart is matched by her tenacity to serve these kids, often not taking no for an answer after it is offered up time and again. I encourage you to either read-up on her life, watch this movie or both. Her name is apt as she has a noble cause which she fights for.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/13/my-700000-children

Mental health spending on the rise

From a recent article in Benefits Pro, which is a recurring newsletter for benefit professionals:

“Overall spending on mental health services increased from 6.8% to 8.2% between 2013 and 2020, according to a new study published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

‘Approximately 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 6 youth experience mental illness each year, and these rates have been rising,’ Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI’s Health Benefits Research and co-author of the study, says in a statement. ‘Over 20 million Americans have a substance use disorder.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues nationally and in the workplace. With increases in both the number of individuals diagnosed with mental health disorders and use of health care services, higher spending is of great concern to plan sponsors of health benefit programs.'”

This trend has been supported by other sources of information, especially as it relates to the impact from the pandemic. When I traveled around with a Behavioral Psychologist who would help our corporate clients set-up mental health programs around depression and obesity management, mental wellness help-lines, etc., she would cite a statistic that 1 in 5 adults would have some form of depression in their lifetime. That is now a dated statistic, as the above surveys cites 1 in 5 per year.

Her main thrust is people who are battling depression to any degree should get counseling. She hated to see anti-depression medicine prescribed by general practitioners, as that just helped with the depression not get at the cause and management. If you know of anyone who is experiencing depression, please encourage them to seek counseling.

There is no shame in getting help from someone qualified to give it. This also goes for other disorders that someone might be dealing with – substance abuse, anxiety, paranoia, OCD, schizoid personality disorder, PTSD, etc. It is not uncommon for someone to have multiple diagnoses. And, I include PTSD, as one need not be in battle to experience post-traumatic stress disorder, as homeless mothers and kids or victims of domestic violence will tend to have PTSD issues as well.