[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield re Max team presents real estate and more.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than in all of America. And why? What's up with homebuyers? What's on sellers minds? How is the market and much, much more. Now, here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Well, welcome to the real estate and more show, and thank you for listening. We talk about a lot of things, important topics, interesting people. But nothing comes as close to the home of many us as what our guest today. And his subject will be. It is about how he fell into alcoholism, how it snuck up on him, and about him being part of the 35% who actually recover from this crippling, relationship wrecking disease. We are here about this one man's dramatic story and how he eventually found, then became grounded in the road to restarting his life. Welcome to the show, Gene.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to the show, and it's a pleasure to be here today.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Hey, Gene, can you be so kind as to tell the audience as well as myself, what a sobriety date is all about?
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Okay. A sobriety date is the day after the last day you took a drink or used a mind altering substance. In my case, I haven't had a drink since January 26, 2002, but my sobriety date is August 28, 2017, because I used a mind altering substance, so therefore, I count that as my sobriety date.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I see. I see. Being honest with yourself. Yes, sir, that's a big deal.
It's interesting to hear. It's interesting to know what we could get ourselves into if we're not extremely careful. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Gene. Where did you grow up, your family, your inclinations towards alcohol?
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I grew up in west Contra Costa county and also grew up in east Contra Costa county. And my family, I had a loving family, and they were very supportive as I was growing up. But one thing is that my father, he did drink very heavily, and I would consider him an alcoholic, but he would have to admit that to himself. But he's no longer with us because he died of this disease.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: He was pretty young when he actually passed. Huh. You know, I've always heard the habits of your family, for some reason, also become the habits of the child. So your father, and not your mother's side, as we spoke off air, drank alcohol, and it was fashionable back in the day, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes. Everyone did it. But it's not the secret to long lasting life, would you agree?
[00:02:52] Speaker A: No, it's not. And back in the day, people socialized in such a way where, you know, they were having a good time, and they'd get together, you know, family barbecues and camping and other family outings, and alcohol was always an equation involved. And I remember my dad and my uncles, they would get together, and they'd be laughing and joking and having a good time. And along the way, they'd also insult people, you know, as they were going along. I remember some of the repercussions of that, too, as well. But I saw that as they were having a good time.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. At school. When you attended school, high school, I suppose you were. Did you begin drinking in high school?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: I actually started drinking in junior high school. My father, during Christmas, received gratuities, and one of the gratuities that he had was that he got a couple of bottles of Corbell brandy, and I'll never forget it. Back in the old days, in the seventies, they used to give out these glasses at shell stations, raiders and 49 ers and stuff. And I remember I was curious, so I poured myself a glass and a raider glass of brandy. And I remember downing it. I tried to taste it, and it didn't taste so good, so I drank it in about two or three swallows. And that warm feeling that came over me of security, like a security blanket, I'll never forget as long as I lived. I liked it immediately. And immediately I felt like I wanted to have more, but because I didn't want my dad to see it would be missing if I had more, I didn't do it. But is what my sponsor told me is most normal people don't remember their first drink like that.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Very interesting. What would you say were the reasons that you would want to drink that warm feeling? But what other reasons were made up, your justifications for becoming involved with alcohol?
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Well, most of us growing up, we just want to fit in with our peers. And so you drink to socialize and to fit in with your peers. And then once the habit forms, then you can use any excuse you want to in the world. Like the. The sky is gray, it's a sunny day, it's a bad day, it doesn't matter. You can make up any excuse that a person would like to. And for me, I just like the feeling that it gave me, usually within the 15 minutes. And then after that, you didn't get that same feeling anymore. It just was elusive, and it went away, and you were always trying to recapture that elusiveness, that feeling.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: So a lot of people want to fit in, so they feel that the use of alcohol makes them feel happy, more talkative and more relaxed.
But, you know, I've had both sides of my family were alcohol users, and there was a time that I believe I used it till excess. And now I like a glass of wine here and there. But I do not drink myself every day. Number one, and number two is when I drink, I'm very cognizant of how I'm going to feel the next day. I will lose a little bit of that gloss. And, you know, it starts with this habit one day after the next. So I can see a young person in high school that have had parents on both sides that were drinkers wanting to fit in and going towards use of alcohol. How was your school days?
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Well, I remember when I would go to a party or something, there'd be a gathering of my peers. Their parents weren't home or something, and they'd hold a party, and it would lower my inhibitions in such a way that normally I remember I wouldn't ask a girl out on a date, but once I had a few drinks in me, then I was asking every girl at the party out for a date.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, it reduces those stress levels, too. But it is a depressant. People don't realize that alcohol is a depressant. And, yes, it gives you that good high, makes you want to hang around with everybody and ask every girl at the dance to dance with you. It is a. And I felt, especially in the later years of my life, that the next day, I just, you know, I miss things. I feel that I don't have the desire to go out and set the world on fire and have a high motivation. I felt that the depression was definitely there the next day. So, you know, I pulled mine way back, and it's been a while now, and I'm enjoying being able to get up in the morning and feel much more happy, much more or less tackle the day. And if I were working for somebody else, they would probably see a higher level of performance or whatever. Another reason for drinking is escapism. You know, people like to drink so that they can feel temporarily relieved from having to make a decision about something in their life. I see a lot of that happening with our younger people today. They need to figure out what they want as a purpose, as a direction, and they use alcohol because they haven't got an answer to it. At that point, did you feel that way at all, a direction in your life and felt that it was, you know, you needed to solve it, but you couldn't, so you used alcohol to get you through the afternoon?
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Not really.
The alcohol for me was just more of a party thing, is what it did lead for me too, is this procrastination on some of the things that I needed to do in life, like go to school and stuff like that, that I needed to get a degree for myself. And so it prolonged those kind of decision makings.
But as far as like, getting up in the morning, that fog, it lifted usually around noon. And I remember getting up many times saying, I'm never going to drink again. Oh, this is horrible. Having a hangover or something, only to find myself going to the liquor store at 04:00 to get my fix, which was either vodka, bourbon and beer and, or anything. It didn't matter. I couldn't keep alcohol in my house because I drank it all, all the time. So there was never any alcohol in my house.
But when I'd get up in the morning, I'd have that fog and my performance at work wasn't what it should be, for sure.
And it took me, like, like I said, about noon, and I'd start to feel good again and good enough to where I was already thinking about getting that next drink.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: So did you start, you said the next day you felt, well, I'm never going to drink again. And then you did because you developed the physical dependence to the actual drug. Is that the reason? Is that why you say that you're not going to drink? And then you did. Is that how it worked? Yeah.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: It's a mental obsession and physical dependence, a physical allergy.
For me, that was, that was how I would cope. Like you say I had, actually, if you take away the alcohol, I had a living problem. And that's what the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I'll say, because that's the twelve step program that I attend and work.
So once you've, you get into that rut and you build a dependence, you also build up a tolerance of alcohol. So it takes more and more to get you to the drunkenness that you want to get to, you'd say the high that you're trying to look for.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: What are some of the traits that an alcoholic has? And how can that person's family or loved one recognize it and then carefully urge to find some help?
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Well, for one, if they drink on a daily basis and they've lost the ability to control their drinking, in which they intend to just have, say, a glass of wine or a beer or something like that, and they continue drinking until they reach oblivion or get obnoxious or whatever it is that they do, or black out a lot of alcoholics black out. And if they've lost the ability to control their drinking, then usually negative, they'll have negative consequences. That's the DUI start coming.
And even though some alcoholics never even had a DUI or anything like that, you'll see that their life starts spiraling out of control. Their health starts affecting their health and their productivity on the job. If they have a job and it just gets worse, it never gets better. And the other thing is, too, is that a person can ask themselves, and somebody outside of their life can ask, would your life be better with, have been better without alcohol?
[00:12:11] Speaker B: For sure. You know, I had a guest on the show, and she was a professional with skincare and an actual healthcare provider, and she was saying that most people back in the day, they didn't realize when they poured baby oil all over themselves and went out in the sun what it was doing to them. Like here, I see that when I grew up that the cool thing to do was to have a cigarette and drink alcohol without really understanding down the road what effects it would have. Do you see that, too? How many years did you drink also, by the way?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Let's see. I started drinking when I was about 13, I believe, and I stopped drinking at the age of 40.
And I do know that my physical condition, my health had deteriorated in such a way that my liver enzymes were off the scale. My triglycerides were, like, in the 400s. My cholesterol was 300.
My blood pressure was like 190 over 120. And so I was already feeling the health effects of alcohol.
When you start to drink, you're just, you know, drinking, you think it's fun and you're trying to fit in. And then after years of alcohol abuse, and like I said, your tolerance level builds up. And next thing I knew, I could drink a fifth of vodka, wake up the next morning, and go to work, and, you know, alcohol, a choice was, was that? And it just got progressively worse. And I remember thinking, well, maybe it was a cholesterol medication that I was taking. So I quit taking that for a year and went back to the doctor, and they said that, you know, it was even worse. So they did an ultrasound on my liver, and they found that I already had the beginnings of cirrhosis of the liver. And I was only 40 years old. And so that woke me up up pretty much to think that, you know, if I keep this up, I'm not going to be long for this world. And, you know, having enough education about my health, I decided that I was going to do something about myself once and for all.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: We're going to take a short break. Be right back.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Re Max well, we were in the market to buy a house in Pleasanton for a very long time. So we saw this beautiful house. We walk in, we see Michael and Nancy. We just absolutely loved this house. Michael brought in a wealth of knowledge and experience to the whole home buying process. He was very professional, and both Michael and Nancy went way above and beyond to help us and to help us achieve the house of our dreams.
[00:15:04] Speaker D: Buying or selling a home? Choose the Michael Hatfield re Max team with ten offices in the Bay Area. Tell us more.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Michael Hatfield, 110 Summerwood Place in Concord. Here's your chance to own a gorgeous townhome on the Walnut Creek border. Nestled sweetly in the 20 home neighborhood of Summerwood Place, this spacious three bedroom home boasts living and family rooms, huge primary suite with attached office, a bedroom deck, and delightful appointments that include new carpets and new paint. Convenient to 680 and Bart. Lovely and affordable, this home is a must see that should sell soon.
[00:15:41] Speaker D: Call us when experience is important to you in buying or selling your home. Call the Michael Hatfield remax team at 925-32-2775 when buying or selling real estate, let us help you. Go to michael hatfieldhomes.com when experience matters to you. Call 925-32-2775 now back to our show.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: So that was a long time. 27 years. Did I get that right?
[00:16:14] Speaker A: 26 years.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: 26 years. That's a long, long time. You know, along the same route, the statistics say that the average age of death from alcoholism, people hospitalized with alcohol use disorder have an average life expectancy of 47 to 53 years for men and 50 to 58 years for women. And they die usually 27 to 28 years earlier than people in the general population. That's something to think about. So I have to admire you for getting help. And how did you realize at that point that you had to do something in order to survive physically, emotionally, and not keep losing maybe loved ones that you are irritable with and were not fair with. How did you recognize it and then, and what did you do when you recognized it?
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Well, I recognized it actually, at a very young age. I remember I was 22 years old, and back then we had newspapers and I remember there was a phone number for AA in the newspaper. And I was living in a city in the East Bay. And I remember I was just real depressed and I wanted to quit drinking and I wanted to have a successful life. And I knew this was hindering my success.
So I called that number and I went to my first AA meeting at the age of 22 years old, and. But I didn't really believe that I was an alcoholic. And so I went for a while. I think I got, you know, a few months sober, and then I went back out and explored a little bit more. And next thing I know, you know, I'm married and I'm 40 years old, and the time has passed, and I've progressed much worse than what I was when I was 22. And so is what I had to do, is that I had to be honest with myself. And that's the first step, is being honest with yourself and admitting to my innermost self that I know that I'm an alcoholic. And the first step is we admitted we were alcoholic and that our lives become unmanageable. And, you know, I can admit that I'm an alcoholic all day, but that unmanageability, I'm one of these kind of people that I've always had a job, I've always paid my bills, you know, but my life wasn't manageable, and I was managing my life. And so I had to fire that manager, and I hired a new manager, which is my higher power, which I choose to call God, and I let him take control. I turned my will and my life over to the care of God. And as I understand him, and it's a God of my understanding in which I get to experience God, I don't really have to understand God in my life. And so from that point on, it's been a lot easier because I gave up. We call it surrender to win. And I had to surrender.
And once I did admit complete defeat to my innermost self, there's no looking back.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: So, Gene, please give us a rundown on these twelve steps that are key to your program.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. The twelve steps are a prescription for living life for us that are alcoholics.
And they work as long as we work them. And it's usually the first 164 pages of the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We go through it with a mentor or sponsor, is what I like to call who I went through the twelve steps with. And then is what a sponsor does, is they teach. He taught me how to go through the twelve steps with another alcoholic so that I could help him or her. And the first step is, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made the decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory around of ourselves. Five admitted to God and to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all nine made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except for when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. Eleven sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: I think people that are struggling with anxiety, depression, irritability, fatigue, sweating, headaches, insomnia, nausea and vomiting and rapid heartbeat and tremors are all withdrawal symptoms from alcohol. And what I understand and tell me if I'm wrong is that when you have heavy drinking and you've been drinking at high levels for a long time, you should have someone or some program that will help you to recover and to stop drinking. It's hard to stop drinking on your own.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: That's statistically I would have to agree. If you have some of those symptoms, it's very important that you do seek medical advice. I would say if you have the shakes and the DT's, we call them the DT's, and you're shaking and sweating and hallucinating and stuff like that.
In my case, I had some sweating and a little bit of shakiness and, you know, the DT's and all that kind of stuff that didn't happen to me yet, but we have a saying yet means you're eligible too. That's just one of those yets for me. If I would have continued on the path that I was on, surely I would have probably started blacking out and, you know, going through the physical withdrawals that a lot of people do. I'm very blessed that I was able to get into a twelve step program soon enough and stick to it to prevent that from happening.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: A person that is an alcoholic will have a lot of difficulty and a lot of internal resistance due to the physical dependence on the drug. I would imagine to say, hey, I've got a problem. I need to correct this problem.
Then I think this is just me. I think around me, you know, the feedback from people around you would become very important to help you make that decision. That, hey, my life is unmanageable, I'm out of control, and I need to do something about it. Would you agree with that?
[00:23:46] Speaker A: You would think, but it's what happens is that the hardest part is to, is most alcoholics experience denial is you look at somebody else. A lot of people think of the old man in the trench coat under the bridge with a bottle of wine or whiskey, you know, and as it turns out, you know, it can be anybody. It could be your next door neighbor, it could be a relative or somebody close to you, and it doesn't matter.
When they're ready to quit, they're ready to quit.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: At a young age, alcohol can affect a person's brain development. Apparently our brain is developing till you're in your twenties. And if it does affect your brain, then it's possible that you won't get that back. I understand. Is that true?
[00:24:38] Speaker A: That is very true. There's a syndrome called wet brain, which there's no recovery from.
But the one thing that I can say happened to me is that as I built that tolerance up, I developed the phenomenon of craving, which means if I have one drink, I have the allergy, the phenomenon of craving, and I can't stop at just one drink. They say if it's hard to stay away from the first drink, try staying away from the second drink. And once you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic. It's just like a cucumber. A cucumber. If you turn a cucumber into a pickle, it'll never become a cucumber again. And that's the way that my brain is wired.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: I think that's probably the way it is for most people. So, in summary, you've been very forthright with sharing your experiences today with our audience.
Folks, if you're having difficulty with this, there is a phone number you can reach out, and these are really cool people that can help you to recover from this dependency. So today, Gene, if you had a few words in summary, and in conclusion, what would you say to our listening audience?
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Well, I would say, you know, give it a try. Keep an open mind. We have an acronym that we like to use. It's called how honesty, open mindedness, and willingness. And if you do find yourself in a twelve step meeting, compare the similarities and not the differences. Because for me, when I first started going to a twelve step program, I tried to compare myself to other people and how bad I was. And I'd be like, I'm not that bad yet. But if I would have been successful at the age of 22 when I went to my first meeting, I would not have the misery that I ended up having over the next 18 years.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: If a person in the audience is struggling and would like to get help for their disease, there's a national number for aa, alcoholics anonymous, 212-870-3400 that's 212-870-3400 just reaching out, making that first step, that olive branch, so to speak, may change your life. We're so appreciative to have Gene on the show today to share his experience with us. Thank you for being on the show, Gene.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Nice guy and well respected member of the community, sponsor to others who have issues with alcoholism. Gene, you're the best. You've been listening to the real estate and more show. Interesting topics like, my gosh, alcoholism and how people can recover from it. Great information. You can listen to archive real estate and more
[email protected]. Radio that's Michael hatfieldhomes.com radio. The real estate and more show is podcast on all major podcast platforms as well, like Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, Tunein and others. We'll be right back with our next special guest. Stay tuned.
