Tears of the Son: An Exposé

By Gerhard Wagner

I seemingly had it all; The cars, the bikes, the boats, the houses. A beautiful wife who loved me and my own successful business. What could possibly be wrong.? Maybe the fact that I didnt take interest in any of it. I was lost in depression and didnt know why. So I drank and drank and drank. Sleep and alcohol seems my only refuge. Come with me through the looking glass and back again and see what I have found. It could possibly save your life.

In this memoir, Wagner explores his substance abuse, shares his experiences, discusses what hes learned, examines the twelve-step program, and imparts the principles he believes in that help him to lead a joyful and productive life. From his birth in Germany, immigrating to the United States at age five, and surviving a volatile upbringing, Wagner highlights key events in his life and examines his descent into substance abuse and his journey back to sobriety.

In Tears of the Son, Wagner relives some of his darkest days, but he shows how those experiences shaped him as a person and are helping him transform from just a human doing to a true human being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450294232

Book preview

Contents

Forward

In The Beginning

Scared Stiff- A short story:

The Story of Robert

Addressing the Panic

Mother-in-law

To protect and serve

The China Syndrome

Off to the Sticks

Answers

The Story of Marv

College

Back to the future

The First shot

Let’s have a look

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Forward

This is the story of me, Gerhard Wagner. This in fact is my real name, not the name I was going to publish it under originally. I have decided however to let the chips fall where they may and show a little courage. The names in this story were also originally changed to protect the innocent, actually, just for privacy issues but then the credibility factor kicked in.

Although much of this story is based on true personal experience, I believe it mirrors what many people go through every day. I have written this book for two reasons and in three stages. The first reason was to clarify in my own mind the process which I had to go through to get to where I am today. The second reason was in the hope that my experience will be helpful to others.

The first stage I decided to explore gives you insight to my past leading up to the alcohol abuse. The second stage goes into the ramping up of the actual abuse itself. The third explains the nuts and bolts of the twelve-step system as compares with mine. I decided to add Expose’ to the title of this book because I was once told by a counselor that I had a real fear of expose’. I guess by writing this book, I am releasing the last of those demons. I hope you will decide to come with me on my journey and judge for yourselves.

In a nutshell, the rehab/recovery system is broken and flawed at its very core. How else could you explain a 3 to 5% success rate by AA and the myriad of twelve-step based substance abuse rehab and recovery programs around the world? The following pages contain the culmination of my journey and explain the principles I have come to believe in very strongly. I believe they more reasonably and responsibly address the foundational requirements for a wider majority of people. As you will see in the pages that follow, I have some real issues with the God part of twelve-step based programs. I do not wish to take God out of the picture completely. In fact, for some people the belief in God is truly helpful in beating addiction. But this should not be the sole basis for a program. Many people try to Get God during the program and fail or simply do not believe in God period….So, what of them, me, us?

GW

"So here, take my wisdom

I’m presently not using it."

The Definition

Of

Luck

When Preparation

Meets

Opportunity

GW

‘84

The top statement is not mine but one of my favorites. The bottom is. I wrote it in the winter of 1984 in response to an interesting situation I became involved in. There have been copies of this saying running around for years with the signature Author Unknown. Well now ya know the rest of the story. Let me explain….

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I shot in a lot of pool leagues and tournaments. I was good because I practiced at it. One night at a league match my opponent started saying some disturbing things under his breath but just loud enough so that I could hear. Every time I made a ball (and I made them all after he shot) he would say Lucky bum, Lucky shit, etc. Well, I couldn’t quite figure out where he was coming from. He, on the other hand, flew by the seat of his pants, cue ball going everywhere. He could only hope he had another shot after sinking a ball. This led to him turning the table over to me after only three balls. As I said, I ran the table.

Driving home that night it puzzled me about what he had said. That’s when I came up with this saying. You see, luck knocks on everyone’s door many times in life. The only ones that benefit are the ones that have put themselves in a position to take advantage of it when it happens…simple, right?

I have a plaque of this on my office wall and many of my friends and family have seen it. They all said it was quite good, why don’t I have it published? My simple response was, I don’t think it’s good enough. Apparently, someone did. At least they didn’t plagiarize it out from under me.

You see I have flown somewhere around 1,000,000 air miles during my career and I have literally talked to thousands and thousands of people. I love to share ideas and information. It’s obvious to me that one of these people thought my saying had merit and submitted it under Author Unknown. Maybe he had forgotten my name. I don’t know. I guess I have to thank him or her for this because it did finally get out there. Maybe if this book ever gets published, I’ll find out how it happened. I sure would like to know.

In The Beginning

I was born a poor black child…Sorry, Steve M., I couldn’t help it.

I was born, at least, in the Black Forrest area of southern Germany in the year 1956. My father was German and my mother was Czechoslovakian. I spent the next five years as any normal child would hope to, being around my parents, grandparents and family friends. I was an only child but always had more interest in older people, so life for me was good. In the summer of my fifth year my mother told me we were moving to America. This excited me greatly. I had heard many stories about this great land and its people.

As it happened, my mother had been working on getting us legal alien status for the past two years. Back then it took two years of waiting, a sponsor and a job to be allowed to enter the United States on a temporary visa. It so happened that a colonel with the CIC (the U.S. military intelligence division) who knew my mother would be our benefactor. He was the liaison between the CIC and Czech underground which my mother was part of during World War II. He was from Alameda, California and in that summer of 1962 we came to the United States.

It was quite an adventure for a five year old, by train to Amsterdam then by ship to New York, through Ellis Island processing and then by bus to California. We even lived through a bus breakdown in Nevada that lasted for six hours. This was not pleasant since the temperature was 100 plus degrees and there was no shade. We arrived in California and were met by the colonel’s family who promptly took us to our new apartment. It was actually quite old but new to us anyway.

So began my introduction to the United States. My father immediately went to work in a machine shop. He was a tool and die maker and quite a good one. I went to first grade that September and that was when reality hit me. You see, neither my father nor I spoke any English. I hadn’t considered that. So, for the next six months we did all we could to learn the language. We studied every night after dinner and to help, one of the first things my parents bought was an old black and white television.

To the amazement of both my parents and me, I passed the first grade that very first year. This should have been a good thing, but for me it had a big down side. You see, once I began to understand the language, I also began to also understand how most of the people felt about Germans.

It was only about 15 years after the war had ended and emotions were still very high. Still, it was pretty hard for a five year old to understand why people, kids especially, were saying such nasty things about me and my family. After all, we were not Nazis. My mother had actually fought against them during the war.

As it was, I found out very early in life what it’s like to be on the dirty end of the stick of prejudice. I decided right then never to group people together due to any reason. I would take them one person at a time. At this point my nuclear family was of utmost importance in my life, and since I had no brothers or sisters to stick by me my Mom and Dad were it. I could at least come home to them after a day of the usual harassment by the kids and even some grown-ups. It got so bad that for a while a gang of kids a few years older than I regularly beat the stuffing out of me for being a Dirty Nazi.

Finally, in the third grade, I had my arm broken and that was enough for my mother. She sent me to two places, a martial arts academy and a Lutheran church school. The bullying stopped for both these reasons although at home in my neighborhood I, let’s just say, had to take more of a proactive approach.

Things went along quite smoothly until about my 10th year. It was then that my mother began to experience delusions, my world fell apart. I didn’t understand the crazy things she was saying. She would come out of her bedroom (the spare bedroom) screaming about the aliens from space molesting her, the secret service coming to get us. It was a nightmare, one that I could not wake up from. My father not being a very loving kind of man was no sanctuary for me. I had nothing. I was alone in the world.

It was during this period of time that I invented the practice of Jamming. It was pretty simple. At night while I was lying in bed waiting for all hell to break loose I’d jam.