| Author | Message | ||
     Captpete |
This as a non-fiction story about one aspect of commercial fishing. It's not a happy story. But it's part of the bigger story, and thus needs to be told. Capt. Pete PDF'd it for you Captain.  (Message edited by Blake on August 06, 2008) | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'm sorry Pete. I have a story of a very close friend that is not far from that. Alcohol and pot, so it is a variation on a theme, but the likely outcome is identical. He threw away a great job, a great family. He married a woman I actually dated very seriously for over a year and hoped to marry... she wasn't happy, so I let her move on, and she met him and they got married. We were all in the same church and stayed friends... though it hurt often, as I was lonely a lot then. He, I and two other amazing men were meeting weekly for 10 years... it started as a promise keepers accountability thing, but we quickly decided that was tediuos, and we just met to have an honest relationship and give each other permission and trust to get into each others lives. He lied to us, including one fake "come to Jesus" moment after an intervention we did when his wife busted him the first time. That just taught him to hide it a LOT better. He told us about the AA meetings he was going to, and how great he was doing. About the time he got his third DUI in a two month period (apparently, the Ohio DMV system ***sucks*** or he would have had the car impounded the second time) his ability to hide it all completely fell apart, and he choose the booze over his wife and kid, and over us his friends. That was after meeting *every* #$%@^%& friday over 15 *&^%%^*& years to try and keep something like this from happening. He went from a 150k per year job (and a pretty cushy one at that) to low end retail sales. Probably making just enough to maintain the buzz. We told him when he was ready to be honest with us, and had really decided he was going to quit, that we would do what we can to help him (with necessary and pretty harsh trust boundaries). He has not yet taken us up on it, I doubt he ever will (it's been more then 5 years now). I'm waiting to hear he died, and pray to God he doesn't kill some innocent in the process, and I hope his wife and son can someday heal. God can heal him, but God won't violate the will of man... and he is determined to kill himself slowly at a huge cost to the people around him. Thanks for the story Pete. | ||
| Blake |
Thanks for the story Captain. We humans can be amazing and yet so tragic. | ||
| Captpete |
I guess I need to look into this Pdf thing, Blake. Convert the Word Doc to Pdf, and then upload it as such? Yeah, Reep; it gets pretty darned frustrating when you want to help, but there's just no way. That little story was the last straw. On previous go-rounds, I'd joined "David" at lots of AA meetings, just to show some support. I watched him try to find his "God" at those meetings. And I wished I could pass my belief on to him that we both see the hand of "God" every time we leave the dock. We see it in the overpowering force of the ocean when it's angry, and we see it in the beautiful, complex creatures that we harvest. But of course, that belief wasn't mine to give, only to hold as my own. I've never counted, but there's a list of friends and acquaintances who have been lost at sea over the years. There's another list of fishermen, nearly half that long, who have been taken by the needle. It just ain't right. But, my intentions were not to bum everybody out. It's just one little facet of what for me has been a wonderful career. I need to write something funny to make up for this, and I just thought of a little incident that took place while fishing out of Chincoteague, VA a long time ago. I'll work on that this evening. It's going to be called, "Man Overboard." Capt. Pete | ||
| Ulywife |
Capt Pete & Reep - thanks for sharing and reminding us that life is precious. We can be the best support/advocate/friend to someone, but they have to decide to make changes in their lives because they want to. It's unfortunate that drugs impact more than the person snorting/smoking/shooting the substance. Their friends and family, a lot of times, ride the bumpy road for a while before having to step aside. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
Capt., your not the first one who used the board to vent and to everyone that has vented, i'm sure it put their mind at ease knowing that there are people who care what happens in their lives or that they have similar stories such as the one of my very good friend/former boss. i met hector when i was gonna switch trades years ago and in the meantime i started to do side work for him instead. it got to the point that i was able to be put on his payroll. one morning when i came into work on the one property that he has i found my tools missing so i go up to tell him and at that time he's having a discussion with his son about his son's finances of which his son was saying that instead of paying his rent he had to get his gold change out of the pawn shop. of course the first thing i thought was why is having to go to a pawn shop when i know his dad is going to make sure his son is getting a decent paycheck. after i tell hector about the disappearance i then suggest we find out what pawn shop his son has gone to and of course that didn't sit well with him that i was suggesting that his son might have stolen tools out of a locked warehouse. well long story short, not only did his son hock my tools but also tools that belonged to his dad and even went to his dads supplier and got expensive tools and turned around and hocked them also. this kid played his dad,me and other's like a fine instrument. saying how depressed he was and he didn't know what to do with his life and a bunch of other crap. that's been some 4+ years ago and even to this day he is still trying to get out of rehabs and dad is still trying to help him. i'm sorry for your frustration but you can't help people who don't want to be helped. and on the other hand it's hard to give up on someone just because they want to give up on themselves. sorry for the rambling |
