In my early teens, I began to have fantasies as to what it would be like to be a girl and to secretly wear my sister's clothes when no one was around, and I then would get so disgusted and ashamed with these actions that I would go further into myself trying to figure out what was wrong with me! As with many of us with this type of gender dysphoric condition, (male to female fantasies) I did a lot of things in my teenage years to "show you" and probably myself as well that I really wasn't the way I felt. I built a couple of hot-rods from the ground up, raced jalopies under a false name, and was a class "B" and "A" ski racer for a few years as well as the 1939 Pacific Coast Speed Skating title.

My first real experience with alcohol in any large quantity, was at age thirteen, during Easter vacation in Balboa, CA., and this probably should have been some sort of an indicator or a warning of future troubles with alcohol, for I had my first and only "blackout" which never again occurred during the next 40 odd years of drinking and which I did not realize for many years. I remember how we acquired the liquor and where we initially took it to drink it, but from about one A.M. in the morning until I came back to consciousness, rolling around in the surf, on the opposite side of the peninsula, in the only suit that I owned, I have absolutely no idea of what happened or what took place during those hours. This in fact scared me badly enough that I did not drink very much for quite some time, and for many years, could not stand the smell of gin, as this is what I got plastered on.

I joined the Navy in 1943 during the height of WWII, thinking that maybe this would fix me, and was petrified all during the 26 months in the South Pacific, not from the war really, but fear that "you" might find out what I was really like and then I would be an "outcast" again, and not really belong. There was one saving grace on this ship that I served on. It was a repair ship and we had a torpedo repair shop, and WWII torpedoes were powered by "alcohol". We had a rather inexhaustible supply of 180 proof "alky" on board and when cut with a little grapefruit juice, it would let you forget a lot of what was the matter with the world and as well, with me.

Upon returning home from the service, and just before my 20th birthday, I got married to a girl I had known from my ice skating days, thinking - I guess - that this would fix me and in addition would get me away from my father, whom I had a very strong dislike for all my life as mentioned before, and could never get along with, for I could never do anything to please the man and every thing that I did was wrong. I was told many times that I would never "amount to anything." During the next twenty years, this marriage went from bad to worse. The girl had been left a considerable inheritance, and as long as she thought that she had "control" when it came to financial decisions, all was well, but as I became more successful financially this became a rather serious contention, and although there were a lot of "good times" the arguments over what we were going to do, where we were going and who we were going to have as friends got more and more heated, and not liking to argue over "small stuff" I began to stay at the office later and later, stopping off at bars on the way home to have a "few" and therefore getting home just in time to go to bed and avoiding any more confrontations.

During this period, I was building up a larger and larger tolerance for alcohol. I have always enjoyed the taste of liquor and always drank it straight over ice, in a double Manhattan bucket, and for a very long time would switch to tonic and lime or orange juice when I began to feel the effects of the alcohol, because I did not like the feeling of being out of control. During this same period, my wife was also getting loaded on a regular basis, and of course this would intensify the arguments to a large degree. After 20 years, I finally left, leaving everything (in California at that time, it was pretty much a "given" that the wife "got it all"), and started over again with just the equity in my company and an airplane.

In the three years that ensued getting the divorce finalized, I met a lovely lady with whom I established a beautiful relationship, and when the divorce was finalized, we got married and my love for this lady was so deep and complete that I was able to pretty much keep the gender question under the covers, which had been a problem in the first marriage, although it was never discovered by anyone, and the next 10 years were probably the happiest in my life up to that time.

When 1973 came along, the business that I had been a very big part of was sold for a rather handsome sum and my portion was literally enough to retire very comfortably with, even at a relatively young age. However, I have come to realize that there is probably nothing worse for a "budding" alcoholic to have than a lot of money, and nothing to do, for over the next several years, I managed to get involved in several different kinds of businesses in fields that I had no experience in and paid very little attention to, for I had found that it was a lot more fun taking clients to five-plus martini luncheons, and letting the business part be taken care of by someone else. The first one of these ventures ended with me being taken for a rather sizable six figure loss and with my clients losing in excess of four million dollars, along with some rather nasty lawsuits. The second, a "sports car" design and manufacturing operation, again left me with a smaller six figure loss, and things did not get much better for the next several endeavors, all down hill!

With these rather attention getting problems, and having to file for bankruptcy to save what little was left, it became apparent that I had better do something that I at least had some knowledge of and over the next two years, I put together a method for "very short term trading" in the Stock Option Field. I had also come to the point of not having enough money to get this "off and running," so got a small group of prior clients involved whom still had some faith in me, and with this little group, got everything back in the black in a rather big way.

As financial success returned, what else but I had to celebrate, and the drinking was again beginning to become a big part of my life. For many years, I had always stopped drinking for the month of January each year, for no other reason than to lose the weight that I put on from some very heavy partying from thanksgiving through the New Year, and although friends speculated that I "drank too much" the doctor who gave my semi-annual FAA flight physical stated that I could not be an alcoholic because I quit drinking every January. However, in 1978 I went to my first "twelfth step" meeting to put to rest the statements of another doctor friend who thought that I drank to excess. I bought some of their literature and actually skim read it and thought it was a very good thing for those who had a problem with drinking, but I was just a heavy drinker, I really did not have a problem.

In 1981, we made a geographic move to the mountain community of Bear Valley Springs, buying a small, which over the next several years, turned into a ten acre "horse ranch" with some 20-plus Arabian horses. With my office still in the Los Angeles area, and too far for a daily commute, I ended up staying in town from Monday through Friday, renting part of a two bedroom apartment with a gentleman who turned out to be going to "those" meetings, and having nothing better to do, I started to go with him and actually ceased to drink while in town and really found that I enjoyed going to "those meetings," and after several months, even stopped drinking on the weekends at home with my wife and daughter.

Much to my surprise, in August of 1982, I actually had a year's sobriety, but I then began to tire of living in the city all week while my wife and daughter were living in the beautiful mountain air. I got the brilliant idea of purchasing another airplane, which I did, and began commuting five days a week to the Los Angeles area office. As I was no longer going to "those meetings", and my love of the taste of "rum on the rocks" was still very much intact, I started to have a drink at night before dinner, and that was all that I wanted, but it was just a matter of several months before it got back to the terrifying realization that although I really did not want another drink, "I had to have one more" to exist. Toward the end of this insanity, I was departing the Tehachapi airport at 4:30 AM, rain, shine, snow, sleet or hail, with a 5th of scotch or bourbon and by the time that I returned in the afternoon (3 to 4:00PM) this was gone and of course I needed "another drink!"

This lasted for the next almost three years on and off, as I would get so disgusted with myself I would go back to meetings, still drinking, which would lead to me getting further angry and mortified to the point that I would get "dry" for from 4 to 6 or 7 months, and then start the whole process over again. All during this time the "gender" thing was again rearing its ugly head, and I, having access to the business funds that I was operating with, began to try to ease the growing unhappiness that was happening because of my drinking and these feelings, and began to spend money that was not mine, buying horses and other expensive "toys" for the wife and daughter to ease my own fears of losing them.

In 1987, I had been "dipping" into clients' funds rather heavily, had been sending out falsified reports, and generally creating the "wreckage that became a very large part of my past," and I had come to the conclusion that the only way out was to do myself in. I had been avoiding anyone that I knew from "those meetings" for the prior 6 months, and on October 16th, 1987, with my wife in Albuquerque, NM, showing some horses at the National Arabian Show, and my Daughter away at college, I had taken a 357 Magnum Colt Python to the office, and with it sitting on the desk, was writing notes to my wife and daughter, explaining why I was doing what I was doing, and how very sorry I was for the mess I had made out of our lives and everything else.

At this point, I today believe that God interceded, for three members from "those meetings," for some unknown reason to me, decided that they were going to stop by and "see how I was doing," suddenly appeared in the doorway of the office, and when they realized what was going on, took me home. Two of them called their wives and had them come and they spent the weekend at my home, all the while trying to get me in some kind of protected environment. They would not even let me go to the bathroom by myself for fear of me doing something stupid. Monday morning, October 19th (the day the Stock Market went South over 500 points) they were able to get me into the Veteran's Hospital in Sepulveda, CA, in the VA Alcohol and Drug re-hab program.

The first three days in "de-tox" were rather interesting. I was served with "Cease and Desist" orders from the Kern County DA, and divorce papers from my wife. But even with these jolts, I finally was at peace with myself. It was not hard at all to come to a complete understanding of the First Step, that "I was powerless over alcohol, and that my life was totally unmanageable." I did not want to leave that safe environment at the end of the 28 days, and was so scared that I went to 129 meetings in the next 90 days.

From this last financial disaster, it is quite obvious that everything was again lost, and for the next several years it was pretty much a "hand to mouth" type of existence. Nobody in the immediate family would have anything to do with me and my life very much existed around "those meetings", with 10 to 20 meetings per week being my "security blanket," and sleeping on the floor of an AA friend's apartment in Bakersfield.

It took the slow process of the Law two years to piece together all the "nefarious" things that I had done, and in 1989 I was charged with 49 felony counts for "Securities Fraud and Embezzlement." Not a happy thought at age 60. This ultimately sent me to the State Penitentiary for a two year sentence, of which I served one year and thirteen days, with half time for good behavior. (If you ever have to go to prison, make sure that your "typing skills" are up to snuff. They always need people like this.)

This was not one of my "life's goals," but was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at this time, for it gave me a good period of time to really examine my life and all of the confusion that had been so much a very big part of my past. Coming to the realization that I no longer was responsible for anyone else but me, I vowed that when I got out, I was going to find out "what was really the matter with me, and my desire to be a female."

And this I did. After some very in-depth discussions with therapists specializing in "Gender Dysphoric" conditions, it became apparent that some genes had probably been "cross-wired" in my Mommy's womb, and I just did not get put together all in one nice neat package that would have kept me happy as a male. After a very long period of searching my most innermost depths, and realizing that there was a very good chance of completely alienating any of my remaining relative, I decided to completely change my life, and live as the female that had always been there. This was not a light decision, for I feared that I had a very strong chance of losing the love and respect of my daughter, whom I love very deeply. Through the grace of God, she has, although not understanding it, accepted me in my new persona, and through the many wonderful, open minded people I have come to know in "those meetings," I have gained a whole new family, more loving and understanding than any that came through the "birth and blood lines."

I have come to realize that the inner strength to make this change was given to me through "God's Grace" and through a self-realization that "what you think of me, is none of my business, but it is what I think of me, and what I am willing to do for you" that is of all importance to me today, and this I learned within the confines of the many, many meeting rooms that I have attended over these past many years, and have not found it necessary to take a drink of alcohol since that very scary day of October 16th, 1987, and for this I am eternally grateful.

Of the many things that have contributed to my great peace and happiness, is service in all the various areas of "twelfth step work" in which I have participated, all the way from making coffee, setting up and taking down meetings, being a secretary, a General Service Rep., District Committee Member and at this time being an Alternate District Committee Member Chair, and having spent a good number of years doing a lot of H & I committee commitments in the prison system, although since I made the "gender change," they seem to be a little reticent about letting me go inside. I have a suspicion that it might be that if they have a "Lock-Down", they just don't know whether to put me with the boys or the girls. Their loss, not mine.

At this point in my life, the word "gratitude" is just simply not big enough to describe what my feelings are for God's Grace that has so freely been given me. There simply are not words large enough to depict how I feel, other than my "Sobriety is God's gift to me, and what I do with the remaining years of my life, will be my gift to the God of my understanding." Thank you all for another day of my Sober and very feminine Life!