By Dan Hanley
It starts with Tina Turner.
It was November of 1985 and the day had finally come when I would get to see her live in concert. She was performing at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA, not far from where I was stationed. I decided that I was not going to miss her.
I was fortunate to have a car, although the reality at this point in my life was that having a car was not necessarily a good thing.
In October I had purchased a Chevy Citation. I loved it. I promised to never drink and drive. For someone who was in the end days of his active alcoholism, that was a promise that could simply not be kept.
Just the week before I had hit a car (parked) in the parking lot of a bar I was headed to. I was already drunk. As soon as I hit the car a police office opened my car door and grabbed my keys. It was dark and rainy I told him. It wasn't raining.
So the night I get to see Tina Turner began the same way as every other
night did. By the time I got to my seat in the coliseum I was drunk. I
could not remember how I got there.I do remember Tina. She was amazing. Her voice, her running around stage and her saxophone player. He was gorgeous.
I remember her every November. And I remember how awful life had become. There would be many more drunk driving episodes before the end would come. And the desperation to stay drunk so I would not have to feel anything only got stronger. Consumed with self hatred and fear, alcohol was my saving grace.
Although alcoholism kills many, including many in the LGBT community and activist communities, the end for me would not be death.
I decided to write some blog posts about alcoholism and my path into recovery as I continue to see alcoholism destroy people in my communities. I will write more about this, including about how I began recovery from alcoholism on December 30, 1985.
Thank you for reading.
This post originally appeared on Dan Hanley's website The Gay Vegans. Republished with permission.
