By Bob Weaver 2026

Getting sober 47 years ago has been the greatest gift given to me by a Higher Power, having written a lot of stories about my drinking life and feeble efforts to get off the sauce.

Two years or more before actually getting sober I made a number of efforts, going to detox and making pledges to my wife, mostly to get her off my back.

Here's a pretty crazy one.

Dianne insisted I go to counseling, and I did, at which time I was placed on a drug called Antabuse, which makes one deathly sick if they imbibe alcohol, and I mean deathly sick.

Taking the drug for a short period, the compulsion to drink was nagging me and I decided to quit taking Antabuse. It was given to be every morning by Dianne, but I developed a great hand trick and put the pills in my pocket, then going to the Classic Supper Club for a few shorts.

Dianne, being the smart woman she was, caught on to my hand trick and began to crumble Antabuse in my morning eggs.

I shortly headed out the door to purchase a bottle of vodka and do a little drinking, shortly to become sick and heading back to the house, attempting to get in bed but collapsing on the living room.

The sickness was overwhelming, and Dianne was overwhelmed too, taking a magic marker and writing some not so nice things on my back, but then calling an AA member, who quickly came to the house.

He called an ambulance and took me to Stonewall Jackson Hospital with Dianne riding in the vehicle, where they gave me a shot to calm me down.

It seemed like Dianne was more upset because the ER crew, with which we were all acquainted, and was really concerned about the dirty words she had written on my back, disavowing knowledge of their creation.

After that, the world returned to the abnormal, with sobriety coming down the road a year or so later.