There was a man who drank too much. He knew he had a problem, but he had a hard time controlling himself. He was usually sober in the morning when he went to work, but on the way home he'd buy two six packs of malt liquor. He'd drink a six pack in the car, and often he was in an alcohol stoked rage by the time he got home. On those days he would reduce everyone in his house to tears. His wife. His children. He didn't hit anyone, because every one kept a couple of yards distance, but he would curse and throw things. Then he would shut himself up in his shop with his guns.
He was a gun smith as well as a car salesman. He would spend the evening drinking the other six pack, watching TV and carving a stock or re-rifling a barrel. He loved the feel of a beautiful, well balanced rifle in his hands. After a few hours in his quiet shop with his well maintained equipment and the distant but attractive humanity on TV. He would feel a few twinges of regret for his anger.
It was on an evening such as this that he saw a meeting of the Brotherhood on TV. A gathering of men who want to reaffirm their place! (Also send money. The Brotherhood was in financial trouble.) Men who loved (in a brotherly way) each other and supported each other's efforts to take responsibility for themselves and their families. Yes.
The man was inspired. He picked up the phone and pledged two months pay to the Brotherhood. He arranged to go to the next convention of Brothers at the Coliseum. He stood with his fellow men and felt a great surge of joy as they joined together in the Oath of Brotherhood. But he didn't stop drinking until one night when he picked up the phone and called the Brotherhood Hotline. Within the hour a Brother was there. Although it was late they talked long into the night. Things must change. Yes. Things must change. First the drinking. Then he would reclaim his place in his family. He would come to them humbly with outstretched arms and they would run to him...
AA wasn't much fun. The dreariness of life without alcohol was almost intolerable. But he persisted.
It's true that when he stopped drinking he began to sleep walk. To take a gun and lift it to his shoulder and sight in on unseen objects. His wife was afraid to wake him. She would lie very still and hold her breath until he returned the gun to the rack.
When she mentioned her husband's behavior to a doctor he aroused from self protective inertia to say ``Take the children and leave!'' But she didn't.
The night she found him in the kids' room whirling and sighting - admittedly far above the small sleepers' heads - she decided to leave with the children.
The man felt a great weight lifted from him. He pretended desolation and anger, but what he felt was immense relief.
He moved into an apartment and spent all his free time at gun shows and club meetings. When he started drinking again he was no longer angry, he was jovial.
One afternoon he put his shotgun in the car and picked up his son to take him quail hunting.
``Be careful!'' his ex-wife called, but she didn't worry. The man had taught gun safety for years.
The boy got in the back as he always did, but his dad said ``No, you're nine now. You can sit up front next to me.'' The boy beamed with joy.
When they got up into the woods his dad reached for the gun and pulled it up from between the front seats. The gun discharged and made a perforated bulge in the car roof. The boy and his dad recoiled in horror.
They both knew that if the boy had been in the back seat he would have been dead.
``I thought it wasn't loaded,'' the man said.
He should have said ``I'm drunk.''
The boy knew.
The man did not stop drinking. But he never took his son hunting again.