Failure's not getting the help

Tim:

Hi, my name's Tim and I am a U.S. Air Force Veteran. I served from active duty from 1977 to 81 and I was in the Active Reserves for three years right after that. I didn't think I had a real bad problem until I was about to retire, and it seemed like my drinking increased. I went from something I liked to do to something I had to do. My mother came over unannounced and my wife and her decided I needed to get some help and at that point, I knew I needed it and I went into rehab for the first time. It was a struggle and then when I hit that final DUI, I woke up in jail. It was a blackout and I just felt so bad, I didn't want to live anymore and at that point I just said, “God either let me get this or I don't want to be around.” And I think that's what it took for me to break that ego, to thinking I have to fix this and all along I've heard it, I heard it, but didn't take it to mean I can't do this alone and I had to get help. You stop fighting everything even alcohol or drugs or whatever the problem is, and you work with others and learn how they did it.

So, I had to go back and look at my past. I had to write that all down and I found out a lot of stuff about myself and then I had to tell somebody about it. And I just look back and I’m amazed at what sobriety can do and people don’t judge you like you think they would judge you and here I am with two DUIs, less than five years sober and I get a job working for a court. What we do is a Veteran gets in some kind of trouble with the law, he’s identified as a Veteran and if he fits the criteria and we do an intake on him, we ask him if he would be willing to go into Veteran’s Court and get help and there is funding to help them with some of their testing, with some of their counseling and those type of things. I can gladly say now that all six of my grandchildren will never see their grandfather drunk and instead of “You can’t be around them,” it’s “Can you babysit or can you take them, or can you come to this party?” I just watched my grandson in a play at elementary school and it’s very specialexcuse me. When the military takes us into basic, they tear us down and build us up the way they want us and a lot of that is fearless and failure is not an option. This isn’t failure. Failure is not getting the help. It takes more guts to reach out and ask for the help and follow through with it.