Big Al

Monday, August 12, 2013:

I don’t mean to elevate Big Al to sainthood, but today is his Sobriety Date. He returned to where we all come from in June of 2004; almost a year after his twentieth year of sobriety. He was suffering from diabetes… he had been whittled away one toe at a time. He said that all he wanted to do was to make it to twenty years and any time after that the Lord can take him (Al's religion was 1. Raiders football, 2. Catholic, and, 3. some Chumash spirituality thrown in [in that order). I hope he is where he can be still watching his beloved Raiders.

I bring Big Al up today because he remains an important influence on my early sobriety, and he is a friend that still lives in many other’s hearts as well as mine. Back when I drove cab on the graveyard shift, I’d stop by the Sobriety Center and shoot the shit with him in the middle of the night. We had plenty laughs and sometimes some serious talks. He once told me that I’d be a calming influence on that cute girl, Bonnie R. I had to laugh because I didn’t think of myself as a calm guy.

My insides didn’t match my outsides at that time. I was in a hopeless affair with a dancer from the Spearmint Rhino… Yeh, in old school speak, a stripper (still smoking crack and muscle popping tar). She’d been living with me for about three months. My heart was in turmoil but I kept up a nice façade... maybe I did look like a “calming influence”.

I was, in truth, anything but that. Bonnie and I became good friends after he mentioned that cute girl. She’d invite me over to her place to do little chores like changing light bulbs for a couple years after that. It is funny how these things tie together. It wasn’t until March of 2007 that Bonnie and I finally became officially an “item”… an AA romance. I feel that Big Al was, not only an important part of my sobriety, but he was also instrumental in Bonnie becoming my dearest one. Every anniversary of Big Al’s sobriety date, I give him a nod of gratitude. Here’s to you Big Al… football season is about to start and I sense that you have been granted a seat on the fifty-yard line!

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