Heading for Trouble

My name is Marshall R. and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is December 10,1993. I'm going to try to share in a general way what I used to be like, what happened, and what I'm like now. I was born in 1939 and had my first drink at a very early age. By the age of thirteen I'd experienced my first drunk. At the age of seventeen I met my wife; I was drunk at the time. I believe if she'd known what was ahead, she wouldn't have married me, because my drinking got worse as the years went on. We had our first two children and I was always in a drunken condition. During that time I was shot and put in the hospital, not knowing if I was going to live or die. It should have opened my eyes but it didn't, for shortly after I got out of the hospital I was drunk again. A few more years went by, we had two more children, and my drinking got worse. For a long time my drinking was only on weekends, and by the Grace of God we got the children raised. But there was many a Christmas that my wife had to get the tree and buy all the presents. And as my drinking went on I did not realize that some of the kids were drinking too, for I was always looking out for myself.