Verse-A-Tell-It-2: This Is How I Stay Sober

By Adrian Evans

Adrian Ray Evans Sr. tells of his wonderful life after thirty-two years of sobriety. His verses depict the honesty, love, and respect he has gained with the help of AA. Ray is often invited to speak at alcohol recovery programs and wrote this book to demonstrate how great and fulfilling life can be when practicing sobriety. Mr. Evans also wrote Woeful Wisdom, which tells of his life as an alcoholic, what happened, and how it is now. Additionally, he also wrote Verse-A-Tell-It 1 which is in verse as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524571931

Adrian Evans

Adrian “Ray” Evans Sr. was born January 18, 1934, near West Louisville, Kentucky. Most of Ray’s childhood was in foster homes due to family struggles. At fourteen, Ray got a paper route, then at fifteen, worked in a restaurant. At sixteen, he joined the navy and served aboard the USS Fessenden. Ray struggled with alcoholism for many years before getting help and quit drinking December 1, 1983. After gaining his sobriety, he built his own house painting contracting business in Orlando, Florida. Upon retirement in 2012, Ray and his second wife returned to their hometown of Owensboro, Kentucky. Ray now attends regular AA meetings and speaks out about the addiction of alcoholism.

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Copyright © 2017 by Adrian Evans.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016921151

ISBN:      Hardcover         978-1-5245-7195-5

                 Softcover          978-1-5245-7194-8

                 eBook               978-1-5245-7193-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/21/2016

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Contents

Acknowledgments

To My Friends

About the Author

I Forgave Myself

What People Buy

Prologue: From the Author to all AAs

A Note from the Author to All How I Stay Sober

I Speak to You

BOOK ONE

Love

Precious Friend

Smallest Diamond in the Diamond Store

You’d Do the Same for me

Sister Margaret (On Her Birthday)

A Hug That’s Snug

I Painted That

Black Handkerchief

Do You Remember Me?

Sharing Your Company

Road Trip: The Story

Road Trip: Going to Florida

Road Trip: My Florida Visit

Road Trip: Return Trip

BOOK ONE A

New Beginnings

My Speaking Fear

Nervous Speaker

First Toastmasters Icebreaker’s Speech

Cocoa Sunrise: The Story

Cocoa Sunrise: The Poem

A Different Way

Don’t Criticize, Condemn, or Complain

What’s in a Name?

BOOK TWO

Bullying

Author’s Note

Age of Hate

Wimpy: The Story

Wimpy: The Poem

Ned and Me: The Story

Ned and Me: The Poem

Girlie Curls

The World According to A. Ray

Torment Me Not

Not Color Did I See

BOOK THREE

Wonders Around Us

Author’s Note

This Land: The Poem

In My Backyard

Orlando, Orlando, (You’ll not be Forgot)

Book Four

Health

Old Dude Health

I’m Madat Salt

To My Smoking Friends: A Special Plea

Smoking

Naps (A Toastmasters Talk)

Woozie

BOOK FIVE

Friends, Family, and Romance

First True Love

To Kim

If I Have Time to Be a Fool

Water Gun Wedding

BOOK SIX

Fantasies

Vacuum Cleaner

Ole Charlie

Infatuation

An Ole Trucker’s Dream

I Splash in Puddles

I Lost Control

BOOK SEVEN

Social Issues

Nine Eleven: The Story

Nine Eleven: The Poem

My Inspiration: Flag or Skin (The Story)

Flag or Skin: The Poem

It Could Have Been Worse (Or Worse as an Excuse)

My Phone and Me

Selfie (Short for Selfish)

Gun Control

Agree or Disagree

Birthday Talk

BOOK EIGHT

Recovery

Author’s Note

What If?

I Can’t Do That Anymore

Cussin’

BOOK NINE

Amends

A Postmortem Tribute to Tish

Dear Tish: The Story

Dear Tish: The Poem

It Wasn’t Her

All My Children

Dear Mom

To All My Former Employers

BOOK TEN

Spirituality

I Am Me

Monsters in Me

Imaginary Beings

I Lost a Friend the Other Day

Holiday Happy

Good-bye

Appendix

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Acknowledgments

Where do I begin? There are so many folks that have unknowingly contributed to the writing of this book. The list is endless.

Over the past thirty-two years of my sobriety, every soul I’ve encountered has helped me in some way. Fortunately for me, without the mind-altering drug alcohol in me, I have been teachable, willing to absorb and capable of responding in kind.

The number of folks that have become an inspiration to me, both in life and my writings, are unforgettable. Their names, their faces, their beliefs appear on every page of this manuscript, namelessly interpreted by me as I have embraced their sharings and teachings.

For those of you who have not yet entered the wonderful world of sobriety, may I extend an invitation to feel the love and beauty I have experienced over my sober years.

For those of you who are struggling with a new sobriety, may you find in these pages whatever inspiration you may wish to accept as a method of peace.

For me, the nine-step promises of AA have absolutely came true and are still inspiring me daily. May I quote them here?

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experiences can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that a higher power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

So to all of you folks that has made my life so very wonderful, I say thanks.

—Adrian Ray Evans

To My Friends

I turn my mind into a mini movie. As it flips back, I let it stop on a wonderful memory of people, places, and things. I replay that memory, savor it, and let the blues get lost in its mist. As I allow myself to enjoy the moment I’ve chosen for my immediate fantasy, sadness, and ill feelings melt away and are replaced with beauty and love I have chosen for me. As I like myself, those around me like me as well, and I in turn, like them more. I would be naught without my friends.

Thanks to my friend Pat Ijames for taking my photo for the cover.

Thanks to my son Frank Evans for the back cover photo

Image%201.jpg

Photo of Birk City Home

This was my boyhood foster home, near Birk City, Kentucky, around 1936–1946.When this picture was taken around 1990, this house had been abandoned for a few years. The last I visited this spot (about 2012), the house was gone and a mobile home was in its place.

_ _ _

About the Author

Adrian Ray Evans was born January 18, 1934, on a rundown farm somewhere near West Louisville, Kentucky. Adrian Ray Evans was always known as Ray. His first name, Adrian, rarely came up until he joined the navy in 1950.

His father worked in a nearby coal mine while doing a small amount of working the dirt-poor ground to raise food for the family. His mother did all the house chores and raised four children. Times were tough: beans were the primary meals.

Ray’s father died of rectal cancer when Ray was eighteen months old. The family was struggling, so his mother was practically forced to give up two of her children to foster care to lighten the load and expenses. Ray was one of them, and at age two, after a couple of foster homes did not work out, a lady took Ray to her farm near Birk City, Kentucky, a non-spot on the Daviess County map, just a few miles from Owensboro, Kentucky.

The farm was partially bounded by the green river where the foster parents fished their trot lines and nets in addition to tending the 150-acre farm. Ray would stay with this family for the next ten years.

His foster mother was controlling and in charge of all aspects of their lives; his foster father rarely had any contact with Ray, so he never really had a father figure. His foster mother hovered over and controlled Ray to a fault. Although the farm was rather productive, money was short and luxuries were nonexistent. The motto of a penny saved is a penny earned became annoyingly repetitious to Ray. About the sixth grade, the foster family sold the farm and they all moved to Owensboro.

When Ray was aged thirteen, his much-too-old foster mother decided Ray was too much for her and sent him back to his real family. His mother had now remarried, had three more children, and wasn’t in much better financial condition than back when she first gave Ray up to foster care. Both parents worked, so the kids pretty much ran free. The stepfather directed all his attentions to his own three children, and again Ray had no father figure. In fact, it was a tenuous relationship at best.

It was difficult for the family to make it on the little money the parents earned. At fourteen, Ray got a paper route for a while and then secured a job in a diner across the street from their upstairs home. A little person (at the time was unkindly referred to as midget) had purchased an old trolley car and converted it