Winging It! With Dr. Paul : Addiction

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Winging It! With Dr. Paul

Addiction

"Calistoga, straight up, with a twist," I murmured when the bartender's gaze fell upon me, and he responded with a conspiratorial wink. Not because he found me attractive (though well he should) but rather for the more revealing secret that we shared: he too was a closet aerohaulic.

We had met at a recent AA meeting, upstairs at the Red Baron Bar an hour after closing. Fruit juice flowing abundantly, amid well-stocked platters of cookies, nuts and raisins, each of us in turn told of his anguish in coming to grips with our addiction. "My name is Ray", the bartender announced bravely, "and I'm an aerohaulic."

It had started innocently enough for him, as for the rest of us, with an occasional hop around the pattern during the lunch hour, then back to the office as though nothing had happened. Nobody noticed, at first, the telltale signs of overindulgence: the dog-eared sectional in the upper left desk drawer, the plotter protruding out from under the desk blotter, the surreptitious calls to flight service to check weather on company time.

In time he was simply not satisfied with an hour of circuits and bumps, and began to sneak out for an occasional mini-cross country. The day came when the boss could no longer ignore the mounting evidence, as Ray returned three hours late for an important appointment, his spectacles spattered with rocker-box grease, spots of aero-shell 100 on his wing-tips, white residue of evaporated low-lead under his fingernails, a vacant, distant look of aeronautically induced euphoria on his face. The morning he called in from Tucson, weathered in, with some lame excuse about an infirm aunt, cost Ray his job - but started him on the long airway to recovery.

The months of denial were over. Unemployed and no longer able to support Hobbs time, Ray finally had to admit to himself that he was truly addicted, that his claims he could quit anytime were specious. He tried cold turkey, but found himself hanging on the airport fence watching students in the pattern share their instructors skitless. He tried distracting himself with women, only to discover that all the really attractive ones are either 99s or married. He tried alcohol, but when the hangover subsided, the urge to fly remained, compelling as ever.

And then in time, as do the fortunate ones, he found his way to AA. Amid caring fellow addicts who had been to the depths of despair, and clawed their way back up to the cockpit. Men and women who helped him to realize his hidden strength, and rebuild his self image, through the certain knowledge that he was not alone, nor was he less of a man for his affliction. He found honest employment tending bar, and began to slowly climb the twelve steps up from the hole of hopelessness toward the CAVU sky of recovery. Having been down the same road myself, I was proud and honored to witness his eventual triumph. "My name is Ray," he announced to the world, cap tilted jauntily, wings pinned proudly on his chest, E6B and flight plan form held high for all to see, "and I'm an aerohaulic."

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