Pat Ritter. Books

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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 116:

She was afraid he would one-day return to his drinking days, which was indelible in her mind. He always wanted to reassure her he was going to try his best to strengthen their relationship by building trust between them.
It wasn’t going to be an easy task to build trust and made an agreement with Ada, for her to tell him at anytime, when she thought he was ‘playing a game’ with her, instead of being truthful with her. She agreed. He immediately needed to take personal responsibility for his actions, and not rely on any other person to make these changes. It was completely up to Bundy how he was going to ‘drive his vehicle’, to avoid the accidents which had previously happened in his life. He was blessed to have a person like Ada as his wife.
It was to become one of the toughest journeys Bundy would ever travel in his life. Instead of allowing other people to think for him, he had to start thinking and making his own decisions. He had to personally believe in himself. At times when he thought of ‘rescuing’ anybody, he immediately asked himself - why. It was like a trigger exploding in his brain, hearing a voice saying, ‘go ahead and play the ‘rescuer’ again’. He had to ‘let go’ of ‘rescuing’, and encourage others to look at their own problem and work out ways of finding their own solution. He had never done that before in his life.
At times he felt almost compelled to act, but pleased he didn’t, whilst other times, events worked in his favour. Actually he felt much better because he unloaded a truckload of rubbish from his memory database. He felt he was becoming a worthwhile person, enjoying the feeling of at last being able to do things, satisfying his inner self of contentment. He felt GREAT! His journey had just begun.
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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 117:

Bundy never thought of himself as being a worthwhile person, although he’d coped with the emotions of life up until this stage, he’d never before thought he’d make a difference in another person’s life. All through his life he tried to help others, but now he convinced himself he had never helped himself. He decided not only will he be there for others, but he would also more importantly, be there for himself.
He never felt the true feeling of success before in his life. Although he’d achieved many things in his life, he had never felt that true feeling of euphoria and exhilaration when everything had come together. He’d never felt knowing he made a difference. It was time to feel those good feelings of excitement, allow a rush of blood to captivate his brain cells, and explode them into adrenalins giving him the buzz he so richly deserved.
He immediately made a decision to change his feelings of inadequacies, and to become more truthful with people. He’d already made his agreement with Ada to share all of his thoughts with her without ‘playing games’. He now had to do the same with all people.
Suddenly after a lifetime of ‘playing games’ he needed to focus on what he wanted to change and needed to tell the truth about everything – his feelings – his thoughts – his dreams and to be accountable for his actions. He was in for the toughest ‘fight of his life’ against himself.
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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 118:

Never before in his life had he been committed to success than he was at the present. He knew in his own mind he had to at least do it for himself and not to blame others for his failures, as he had done so in the past. He had to learn to ‘tell the truth’ about everything, which was difficult for him, because all throughout his life he constantly ‘blew out’ stories to make them more believable, so people would think better thoughts of him.
One of the advantages he possessed was being a good listener. His role as a counsellor enhanced this skill to be honed near to perfection, together with his past skills of problem solving learned as a detective. His job now was to listen to his own self and to solve his own problems. His only concern was sharing his feelings with others.
In the past when sharing his feelings, he had been constantly abused, but recently sharing his feelings with Ada, she made him feel safe and reassured. It was probably the first time in his life when he actually had fun in sharing his thoughts with someone he could trust without being ‘put down’. Being truthful and trustworthy with Ada, didn’t change over night. It was another six years before Ada would completely trust Bundy.
With time, their relationships strengthen and their love blossomed. Bundy felt safe and secure in telling Ada anything he wanted to without feeling insecure. She in turn shared secrets with him knowing completely these secrets were to remain between them and not to be shared by any other person.
‘To thy self be true’ he repeated over in his mind, each time he was tempted to ‘play games’ with people. Or, if he felt he was about to exaggerate, what he was about to say, he remembered his saying, ‘To thy self be true’. If the other person didn’t accept his word, he didn’t worry. He knew he was telling the truth and understood HE was the problem. Over time Bundy’s ‘self confidence’ improved.
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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 119:

After three years at the Detoxification Unit he was appointed a counsellor, to a ‘Drug Clinic’ to counsel clients dependent on hard drugs as heroin. It was a different type of counselling. His clients were totally dependent on heroin to live their lives.
Many a client asked him if he’d been a ‘copper’ to which he replied, ‘Yes.’ Asking how they knew - they knew – once a copper always a copper they said. It never worried them that Bundy had been a ‘copper’ because they’d joke how they had robbed banks to get money to buy their drugs. It became accepted to have ex-copper helping junkies.
After a short time at the ‘Drug Clinic’ he was appointed to his own office in the community. After all, this is what he always wanted to do, but he couldn’t have done it any sooner, because he didn’t have the required experience or skills in counselling. He was clearly intoxicated with excitement to have been given an opportunity of working in the community.
Excitement bubbled inside of him, knowing finally his wish had come true, to work in the community to provide a service of alcohol and drug counselling. At the Detoxification Unit it was a controlled place for clients to stay and detox and after completing his apprenticeship at the Detoxification Unit and Drug Clinic this was going to be a different kettle of fish dealing with clients in the community.
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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 120:

Slowly he gained his self-confidence, by ‘fighting his demons’ especially his role as a ‘rescuer’ and felt personal growth and happy to know he was ready to do a good job. Who would have thought he would become an alcohol and drug counsellor with my own community? He was aware of the tough journey, which lay ahead.
On his first day at his new office, a client he’d counselled at the Detoxification Unit presented. His name Glen who’d been in and out of detox units most of his life and read in the local newspaper Bundy was the first alcohol and drug counsellor for the community and wanted help from Bundy to overcome his alcoholism.
Bundy knew Glen’s concerns with alcohol, which had taken over his life. Glen reassured Bundy he would do anything he wanted of him so he would not be dependent on alcohol again. This appointment was Bundy’s baptism of fire with Glen being his first client.
Glen’s history of alcoholism started early in his life through drinking beer, which progressed onto wine and methylated spirits. Glen, after purchasing his bottle of methylated spirits, walked to the nearest park consuming all of its contents of the bottle he had purchased.
In the past when Glen completed his detox at the Detoxification Unit, he returned home swearing he would never drink alcohol again. A couple of weeks later he presented at the unit once again for detoxification. On several of these detox admissions; Bundy spoke with Glen about his future and his drinking. Glen was a ‘revolving door’ client who were not ready to stop and the ‘penny never dropped’. It became one of Glen’s greatest challenges to stop drinking and was determined to do anything to stop.
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SPECIAL NOTICE: I'LL BE ABSENT UNTIL 27TH OCTOBER 2018. CATCH UP WITH YOU WHEN I RETURN.

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Thank you Nevis: Page for today. 'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 121:

He wanted Bundy’s help this time; he was going to do anything to stop his drinking and knew what Bundy himself had gone through to stop drinking alcohol. He’d heard his story during the group sessions at the ‘Detoxification Unit’. His was a different story to Bundy’s, but together they could help one another.
This was Bundy’s opportunity to complete his wishes to counsel clients like Glen in the community after they had completed their detoxification. They spoke about strategies on how he was going to stop drinking and remain sober. It became a challenge. Glen had not had a drink of alcohol since his last discharge from the Detoxification Unit, which was almost a month. Bundy’s initial challenge was to empower Glen to ‘take personal responsibility’ for his own actions.
Glen attended Alcoholics Anonymous, a programme for people who wanted to stop drinking alcohol. It is a twelve-step programme. Whilst Alcoholics Anonymous help many people to overcome their alcohol issues, it didn’t help Glen. Bundy wanted to try something different, which Glen would do for himself.
They spoke about what Glen wanted for himself. He was unhealthy; because of the years of alcohol abuse caused untold damage to his brain, liver and body. He wasn’t able to work giving him many hours of boredom and his family of his wife and children had long left him leaving him alone. He didn’t have any friends only those who he used to drink alcohol with. Now, he didn’t have any friends and rented a caravan at the local caravan park walking everywhere he needed to go.
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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 122:

At their initial session Glen spoke about what he’d like to do to stop drinking alcohol. His life was ‘a mess’. For Glen to take personal responsibility for his life, he first had to work out what he actually wanted to do. Their initial session ended by Bundy wanting Glen to decide before their next session, an answer to ‘what he wanted to do for himself?’
In counselling hours, Glen’s programme may take many sessions. Bundy allocated a total of nine sessions for each client. If they, the client hadn’t reached where they wanted to go by then, he referred them to another service. If they couldn’t get what they wanted in nine sessions, and then he couldn’t help them any further.
His next client was totally the reverse to Glen. Peter a young male of twenty-two years of age presented to stop drinking alcohol. He was employed full time and told Bundy he consumed almost twenty-four stubbies of beer per day. After making the proper introductions, Bundy requested from Peter how much in money it was costing him per week to drink alcohol. Peter admitted he was spending about $200.00 per week. ‘$200.00 per week, that’s a lot of money.’
‘I earn plenty.’ Peter replied.
‘That amounts to $10,400.00 a year. You must have plenty of money to waste on alcohol?’ Bundy said.
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