Slow-N-Easy's Story...

[slow-n-easy]

How it started:

Easy's started out in 1961. To him life seemed fantastic. There were all kinds of things that were laid at Easy's feet when he was young, so he would grasp those things with total amazement and feel the spiritual connection through learning that those lessons taught.

His family was not well off, but they seemed to have a solid grasp on how to keep a roof over their heads. His parents were strict and made him go to church every Sunday. It was their belief that a belief in God was going to be the thing that would build a great foundation for Easy to live a healthy and normal life.

Being that Easy was the first child in the family, he had pretty much all of the attention for the first four years. He had both sets of grandparents who showed him all of their love (separately) and two loving parents. Then his little sister arrived. Easy had to share now! He didn't like that!

After his sister was born Easy started to notice that things in the family were not going as good as he thought that they were. He remembers the day that his father brutally attacks him with a belt, leaving deep and bloody welts on his legs and buttocks. His mother and father were fighting at the time and Easy started crying because all he wanted was things to "be nice". His father did not like the noise that Easy made, so he beat him. It was the first time Easy remembers his mother taking his sister and him and leaving for a couple of days.

As time went along, the family was moved from a trailer to a house. It was Easy's first transfer from one school to another. He was upset that he was moving away from his “friends”, but was assured that he would make a lot more at the new house. Although there were some happy times at this point in Easy’s life, there were a few more of those days away from dad.

Easy and his sister started to “fit in” with the other kids in the neighborhood. It was still necessary for them to go to church every Sunday, but now it was only them who went to Sunday school. Easy and his sister learned all about the does and don’t of what a vengeful God wanted of them, but came home only to experience their parents doing the things that they had been told God would punish them for. Easy remembers the night that he questioned his father about his actions at the dinner table. Easy was met with a fist to the face that sent him flying through the air and against the dining room wall, some six feet away.

This time there was no escape to somewhere else. His mother was now too afraid to do anything about it. She did not want the same thing to happen to her. Easy does remember the argument afterwards about on how they were going to explain Easy’s two black eyes.

Easy’s father was starting to take more and more trips away from the family now. His mother had announced that Easy would soon be having a new brother or sister. Things got really confusing for Easy at that time. A time that should be filled with happiness and togetherness was instead be filled with anger and separatism.

It was now thought that extra curricular activities would be good for Easy. His mother enrolled him in the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and Little League Baseball. Easy’s schedule was pretty full with school and all. Actually he was having a pretty good time. He was learning how to participate with others and how hierarchy worked. He had father figures who did not hurt him in his life now. He was shown respect by his councilors, scoutmaster, and coaches. Even with that respect, Easy was completely and pleasantly surprised when his father announced that he would be attending his baseball game that night.

It would be the first time Easy felt grief. His father had an ulterior motive for showing up at Easy’s game. He announced to Easy that he and Easy’s mother were getting a divorce. Easy didn’t know what to do. He was ten years old and knew nothing more or less than love for his father. He cried all night long. Easy’s dad threw Easy an old piece of his baseball uniform and walked out the door.

Easy was now told he was to be the man of the house. He was given responsibilities around the house and still had to go to school, Boy Scouts, and baseball. His mother now had to go to work, to make the bills, so Easy had to do the chores. He and his sister were left with different babysitters for long periods of time.

One of those babysitters was a 17 year old girl who lived a few houses away. Her brothers and sister played with Easy. One night after she put Easy’s sister to bed, she took Easy to his room. It was there that she started asking Easy certain questions about what he knew about sex. Of course being that Easy was only 10 years old, he knew nothing about sex, so the babysitter showed him. It was Easy’s first experience in intercourse. Although he knew that it was wrong, he was complete intrigued by what was happening to him. Easy did everything that he was told, but was met by the dissatisfaction of his performance. It was agreed that there would never be talk of what happened that night!

Easy’s mother tried her best to provide for the family. She had to stop work after Easy’s brother was born. Easy’s father had long stopped sending money for child support. He had moved out of state. Easy remembered the Christmas that the local police pulled up to the door with a Christmas tree and a bunch of presents. They had to because Easy’s mother just couldn’t afford it! So now it boiled down to Easy watching his new little brother and sister.

Easy’s mother finally had enough. She had been brought up to be a mother. She had no skills other than that. So she went out to a bar and found herself a man. They got married soon after that, and soon after that she was pregnant again. Both worked jobs, so Easy and his sister were left with the next door neighbor.

The next door neighbor didn’t do too much watching after Easy and his sister. She had kids of her own, and she didn’t watch out for them either. Any way Easy and his sister would break into their house and stay there until someone got home. Easy’s uncle and aunt watched after the baby while everyone was at work and school, so that left Easy and his sister alone for long periods of time.

Easy had become very curious after his sexual encounter with the babysitter, so he started to experiment on his own. So he experimented with his sister. He was now 11 years old and he started to realize that there were certain pleasures that went along with the experimentation. He knew that it was completely wrong to do, but found the intrigue far to exciting to stop.

It was now time for Easy’s mother to have the new baby. She went into the hospital and never came back. Something happened during child birth and now she had become really sick. Easy’s new stepsister came home, but his mother remained. Easy’s stepfather worked at nights, so he slept during the day. It was not a good idea to wake him during his sleep. Easy found this out one day after he was punched in the head for making too much noise. It was agreed upon that Easy’s uncle and aunt would watch over both of the babies until Easy’s mother returned home. It never happened!

One night while staying over at Easy’s grandparents there was a phone call. It was the hospital, saying that they should come there quick. All Easy remembers was the rush to the hospital and the family coming down stairs a couple of hours later crying. He was told his mother died. Easy had never felt pain like that before. He felt like dying too. The whole family cried for the rest of the night and the next day too.

It was agreed that Easy’s grandparent would take Easy and his sister, and Easy’s aunt and uncle would take the two babies for the time being. It didn’t take long before Easy’s real father and Easy’s step father had something to say about that. The step father wanted his baby, and Easy’s father wanted Easy and his sister. He would not claim Easy’s brother as his. Easy was old enough now to ask the question: Why would his father want him now after abandoning him and his sister? The judge saw it that way too. So Easy and his sister went to live with his grandparents, Easy’s brother with his aunt and uncle, and Easy’s stepsister with his step father.

Easy still hung in there with school and Boy Scouts. He wasn’t doing that great in school anymore, but he was raising through the ranks of Boy Scouts. He found that his grandparents were a lot more lenient with the way they parented, so he took full advantage of it. He started acting out in ways they never thought he would. The sexual relationship with his sister increased, and there were now other sexual encounters with kids a little younger than his age.

The brother of one of those encounters became Easy’s best friend. They were the same age and his folks left him and his sister alone most of the time. Easy's first real encounter with alcohol came when he and his friend drank a pint of MD 20-20. Both got sick that day, but Easy had found his niche, so did his friend. It wasn’t long after that both smoked marijuana for the first time. They drank and got high many more times that summer. Easy started smoking cigarettes too! What the hey? He was 13 years old now!

Easy’s grades started to slide. The only thing he could fall back on now was Scouts. Other than drinking and getting high, Scouts was the only thing that kept his attention. Easy now started to hang out with some of the older kids. He had stopped completely going to church and blamed God for all of the heartache he was feeling. Some how Easy realized that having sex with his sister wasn’t a good idea and that finally quit. It might have been because he was starting to find girls his own age or older attractive?

Easy’s grandparents did not like the crowd that he was hanging out with. They had noticed that Easy’s appearance and the way he treated people had changed dramatically. They had a huge falling out over it and Easy moved out. He moved in with a good friend of his.

The house that Easy was living in was a mess. The reason was that Easy’s friend had absolutely no parental supervision. They were left in charge of the house, and two younger kids. There were cats and dogs living in there with them. Easy and his friend smoked dope, tripped on acid, and drank with no abandon. Easy finally turned 16 years old and got his drivers license. He was still expected to attend school and was given permission to drive the spare car to school.

Meanwhile Easy started a sexual encounter with his friend’s neighbor. Easy refused to call her his girl friend, but didn’t mind the perks that went along with knowing her. Easy used and abused her with no thought about how she felt about him. He treated her no better than he treated his friend’s dog!

Easy finally got fed up with living in such a mess. He was now 17 years old and wanted something different. He had some how achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in Boy Scouts, but had lost complete interest in it now. Easy moved back home, and for doing so he was treated with his own car. He stayed out of trouble for a while, but found his way back to what he loved best. Drinking! He quit school and started working.

In Florida the drinking age was 18 years old at the time. When Easy turned 18 he went and drank in a bar. At this age he had already drank alcohol, snorted crystal meth, snorted cocaine, took acid, snorted and smoked PCP, smoked and snorted heroin, and had taken a variety of prescription drugs. The day he walked into the bar he knew he had found his home.

Easy linked up with a girl he had met through a friend. The first night they met they had sex. For some reason this was different for Easy. The sex was actually reciprocated. There was enjoyment even though they were in the back seat of the girl’s car. Easy fell in love for the first time that night.

They had sex every day after that. Easy’s grandparents were completely against the idea that Easy was having sex with a 16 year old girl, but Easy didn’t care what they thought. It wasn’t until the girl announced that she was pregnant that Easy got concerned. It was decided between the two of them that the only thing that would be appropriate would be an abortion.

Easy got a job right away and saved up the money for the abortion. He and his girlfriend went to the clinic that day and had the procedure done. Easy was relieved, that it was taken care of without anyone but them knowing. He didn’t know that it effected his girlfriend mind!

It wasn’t long after that, Easy’s girlfriend announced that she was no longer attracted to him. That she had started seeing one of Easy’s best friends. Easy wanted to kill his friend for betraying him, but instead went to the bar and blacked out. Easy knew that was the way for him to deal with things like that. About a week later he was arrested for possession and walked away with only a slap on the wrist. 18 months probation!

Later that year, Easy met up with the friend he used to live with. His friend had moved out of that house and moved in with his new girlfriend. Both Easy and his friend were short on money, so they decided on a scheme to get some. Easy drove and his friend robbed a gas station. Easy picked his friend up around the corner and drove to the bar. Easy later found out that the gas station attendant and his friend had collaborated the “robbery” and the split would be three ways. When Easy got his, he drank and smoked all of it in one day!

That job that Easy had gotten to pay for the abortion was actually doing good for him. He had learned a bit about electronics and fixing TV’s. He had done so good that they had given him his own store to manage. Can you imagine his horror when the police called him at work, telling him that they needed to talk to him about the robbery? He left the store, went down to the main store, turned in the keys, went home, grabbed a bunch of clothes, and left town.

He met up with a drug buddy in a town in the middle of “No Where” Florida. They made the decision to work to get enough money to leave the state and move to Massachusetts. There they would form a band and become rich as rock stars. They did as they said and left town about a week later. Easy’s bedraggled car broke down several times on the way, but they made it about two days later. No where to sleep, no food to eat, and about $20.00 between them. They did have the fireworks they bought on they way up though!

Easy’s drug buddy knew a few people in the town they drove into. Luckily one of his friends talked his mother and father into letting them stay down in the basement. They promised that it wouldn’t be long before both of them had jobs and would be in a place of their own.

Easy and his two new band members decided that the way to make it in that town was to get the band started and forget the jobs. They needed a bass player and a lead guitarist and they would be set. Still no food, no money, and Easy’s car broke down, so no car!

Of course this arrangement went over like a lead ball with their new landlord. Their son kept on talking his way into letting Easy and his friend stay, but when the music started down in the basement, they arrangement came to an abrupt end. Easy and his drug buddy were now living in the woods.

The band stayed together long enough that there was equipment and a record that was cut, but then the weather started to get cold. Easy knew he had to do something and do it quick. He didn’t mind camping out when it was warm, but there were snow flakes starting to fall. So Easy went to a party, used his status as a “rock star” to hook up with a woman, and moved in with her. He used her and abused her and screwed around with anything that would go for it. He was going to be famous and didn’t want to be tied down to one girl.

Well it got cold real quick. The band was still playing out and making money, but none of the money went to the members. It went to equipment and recording. One day Easy walked out of the apartment and slipped on the ice. Maybe it was the blow to the head or something, but that was the day he made up his mind that he was going back to Florida. So Easy asked his “girlfriend” if she wanted to move with him. She said yes, and they loaded up her car and left.

Easy hadn’t thought about what he had done when he left. His grandmother and grandfather had both suffered from cancer. Just before Easy got into trouble his grandfather had died. That left Easy’s grandmother and sister to care for the house. When Easy showed back up, even though there was a show of relief that he was alive, there was an air of uneasiness.

Easy knew he had to find out what he had to do with his legal problems. He contacted the robber and found that the guy who worked at the gas station had taken the rap. The police were never really looking for Easy except to question him. Meanwhile his 18 months of probation were up in about a week. Easy went in front of the judge and had his drug arrest expunged. Later that week he got his job back at the TV place. It was almost like Easy never left.

Easy was now back in his environment. The girl he brought back with him knew that he was not faithful to her in Mass., but didn’t realize how little care he had for her feelings when it came to him pleasing himself. Easy went to a party and met up with his first girlfriend. He had sex with her while they were on Quaaludes. She again got pregnant! This time Easy said she was on her own. Problem being was her father didn’t look at it that way. He was a prominent business man in the community and had pull with people in high places. He had Easy put on a restraining order.

After the baby was born, Easy got drunk and decided to go see the kid. He was promptly arrested and thrown in jail. The girl’s father had a judge listen to the argument that Easy had raped his daughter and wanted Easy put away for 20 years. Luckily for Easy the girl told the judge that the sex was some what consensual and it was agreed that Easy would lose all parental rights to the child, including never stepping foot on their property again. No jail time for Easy!

This of course put a strain on Easy’s relationship with the girl he had living with him. Easy was now going to the bar every night and found out that his “girlfriend” had been sleeping around on him. In an enraged fit of drunkenness he came home and confronted the girl. After confessing, she promptly started to fight, biting him in the chest. Easy responded by putting a fist in between her eyes and knocking her into and through a wall in the house. When the police came it was suggested that she move out. It was agreed upon and the move was made. No one was arrested!

Easy now lived with his grandmother. Easy’s sister had married and moved out. Easy and his grandmother were drinking buddies. Even though Easy started the life style of a biker, his grandmother and him were inseparable. She stuck by him even when he got busted for his first DUI. She drove him around to work and etc. while he was without his license. Their relationship lasted through all kind of things that Easy put his grandmother through.

As the years went by, the quantities of drugs and alcohol steadily increased. Easy finally got the news that his grandmother’s cancer had come back and it wasn’t going away this time. He straightened up the best that he could to take care of her, but knew nothing but sorrow in the idea that he would soon be without her. The day she died Easy cried. He went to the hospital that one last time and told her that she had to let go. It was the last bit of emotion that Easy had left in him. His soul had died with her!

Easy went into a tail spin. He lost his job that he had kept for over 17 years. He drank a bottle of vodka and a case of beer a day now. He rode his Harley and shot up cocaine with his biker buddies. He copped a new job somewhere in there. The only reason was it takes money to do what he was doing on a daily basis. Some how Easy kept enough of his senses to make it to work on time. He did nothing more than muddle his way through it though.

Then he got his third DUI. No more cars, no more bikes, just the city bus. There was no humility over it. Just drink and get high, that was the priority. Easy locked himself in the house and drew down the blinds. He only came out to go to work. He would go to bar and pick up his dope, grab a case of beer, and lose himself to oblivion. His friends only came over because he was willing to buy. He muddled himself through the legal process and finally got his license back. For a while he popped his head out of the darkness, only to find despair at every turn.

He spent every bit of his money on beer and dope. No clothes, no food, enough gas to get to and from work and to go to machinist’s school. Work and party at night, sleep during the day. Two times a week go to school and then rush to the bar for the beer and dope.

On the weekends Easy didn’t use his truck, he walked around in a daze. Clothes all tattered, eyes sunken in, no place to go. The bars wouldn’t let him in any more. Just the sight of alcohol made him go bonkers. He didn’t know that his liver was shutting down on him. Even the smallest drink would put him over the edge.

In 1999 he was picked up, robbed, and beaten by the cops two times. They didn’t arrest Easy, they just took him to jail and let him sober up a little, then they would let him go with just enough money to get a cab ride back home. I guess he had lost almost $1400.00 in those two instances?

Life was spiraling down the toilet at the end of that year. All of Easy’s friends were either gone, dead, or in prison. The “friends” he had left just used him to get high. The people he used to call bums were now the only people he could relate to. It was a party for these people that caused Easy’s last debacle. His Christmas party turned out to be a drunken, pill fest. Easy with a fifth of vodka, a totem pole of Xanax, and two cases of beer passed out on his front porch.

He was awaken by one of his “friends” declaring them to be out of beer. So Easy got up, went and got his pistol, and said something about getting the money a dope dealer had ripped off from him earlier that week. They got in his truck and smashed into a couple doing some last minute Christmas shopping. The couple were sitting at a red light. Easy ran! The next day he made the decision to quit drinking. He has not looked back since!

Thanks to the suggested program of AA. Easy has enjoyed the relief from the craving of alcohol and drugs. He has put all of the all of the bad memories into God's hands and asked forgivenes for his sins. He has perhaps helped over a two hundred people find their way, just the way he did.

Just by living the example of what God can do in his life, Easy has mended many fences. He knows that he has to come to places like this to keep his spiritual awakening alive. That so he can spread the word of that awakening to those who still suffer. A promise that easy made to God, exactly 9 years and eleven months ago.

S-N-E

[yukonm]

Welcome to SNC and thanks for sharing your story.

[Chy]

Very much appreciate you taking the time to post your story! Thanks so much, great share.

[JDSOBER]

Hi I too wanted to thank you for your story here and appreciate it.
Hope to get to know you more.
JD

[Chance]

I really have to tell you I can relate to so so much of this!

Thaxs