I’m going to go back to high school for just a second. My father passed away unexpectedly when I was a freshman in high school.

My mother had relatives in Hawaii, so I was sent there for about three months. I got my first social security card in Hawaii, and I worked in my uncle’s construction business there in Honolulu when I was fourteen years old. It helped me out to stay busy and it helped to have some good male examples around.

I was 21 the first time I got married. I married Becky Baldwin, one of the gals I had been dating in high school. She graduated in 1964. She got married to young. She was very insecure and very immature.

I’ve told all this to my kids.

I was raised in the Mormon Church and I had the teachings but I fell into the trap of alcohol. I decided I didn’t need my religion or my church and I became an alcoholic.

A lot of negative things began to happen from the time I was in the service and age 23. I’m not blaming it on the service. I drank quite heavily from the time I was 23 until about the time I was around 40.

I got a divorce in 1978. Then I got married to Deborah Rawlinson (?). I had two more sons, but another house, and continued drinking.

I got another divorce and finally got some help beginning on February 7, 1991. Assuming I make it on February 7 of this year, 2007, I will have sixteen years of sobriety. I’ll be pretty lucky and pretty proud of that fact.

I’ve been able to make amends to people that I have hurt through my alcoholism.