This is an excerpt from my memoir, Officer Banfield — the honest story of my years as a corrections and police officer, hitting bottom in alcoholism, and the long road to recovery.
For the next few years, I say it wasn't that bad because I was really bad while I was in law enforcement, and then it wasn't as bad, but it still got to the point of "You're going to destroy yourself and ruin your life, or you are going to get sober."
But at the time, I remember my dad asked me, "Do you think losing your job had anything to do with alcohol?"
I said, "Absolutely not Dad. I'm never quitting drinking and it's not the alcohol. It's the dispatcher. It's the police department. It's the bias that they have against men for they didn't even ask me for my side of the story. It's them. I did things sober that were irresponsible and it's not the drinking Dad."
My dad was an alcoholic and he knew damn well about abusing alcohol.
I told him it wasn't the drinking and after he died, I realized it was the drinking and that I couldn't stop.
Thank God I've got this story to share with you today instead of all of the other stories that played out in my mind with miserable endings.
I got one more thing to share, the last time I saw the dispatcher. It was a couple of days before my last day shift. She had just finished off her night shift and I had just called her. No, that was before I had called her the second time.
I guess she had reported the first call and this was right before I called her the second time. She looked at me. It was a moment reminiscent of the very first time we saw each other, which was really powerful connected eye contact.
The last time I've seen her in nine years and I don't imagine I will ever see her again, but if I did, I got a lot of "I'm sorry" to say and I certainly wouldn't go looking for her.
The last time I saw her she was sitting up on a desk looking beautiful in her dispatch uniform and while I hadn't been talking with her, having any kind of thing except that one phone call a few weeks before on the last night shift, she looked at me, and while so many people in life often blow you off or they don't look at you when you try to look at them, she looked at me and she looked straight into my soul, and she bore into me with all the things she wanted to tell me and say to me.
A bunch of people, all the other officers from the night shift were hanging around and several of the other officers who were walking with me on day shift including the one other officer that was trying to get with her, and in the middle of all this, she stopped and stared at me as I walked by.
Just her blank lips, but fiery eyes and stares at me, with what I can best characterize as a sad, "I'm sorry" or like your dog after you had beat them, or like your dog after they had bit you, with like both of those kind of looks in her eyes, just this huge deep sadness.
I was so confused because I didn't understand what was coming. I
guess she realized they were about to get rid of me and maybe she felt bad for what she did, or how things had worked out, or she wished things had worked out differently.
She knew this was the end, I don't know. She looked at me and I remember the other guy saying, "What was that about?"
This was like everyone around noticed this, even though neither of us talked and it only lasted for a few seconds while I walked by. The guy was like, "What was that about dude?"
I said, "I don't know man."
It was crazy like people saw this silent like telepathic communication happen, and then it made sense. I ended up calling her like a day or two after that.
I don't know if she answered or not. I think she answered and I asked,
"What was that look about? What were you doing with that?"
She said, "Look, you can't be calling me like this, alright? That's it."
I said, "Okay," and I hang up or whatever.
Then I got it, I said, "Oh, she knew this was coming and those were all her feelings about it. Those were all her feelings at once about it."
I'm grateful that we had that last look at each other and I haven't said shit to her since then because I respect the restraining order. I don't even care if it was a 1-year-long restraining order and it has been over, I don't want any of that shit.
I trust if God wants me to make some kind of specific amends for that, like in AA, we make a 9-step amends, except when to do so would injure
them or other people.
I trust if God wants me to make any kind of personal amends there, she will be put directly in front of me, and if not, that sounds good. We don't need to have that conversation.
When I think about living to like a hundred years old, you realize how long life is, you never know, right?
The last I saw of her, I did google her, of course, for a bit, I think she blocked me on Facebook.
I blocked the other dispatcher on Facebook and I think the last I saw of her she had gotten married and looked like she had put on a whole lot of weight.
She had actually married the corporal that I used to work with, who was one of the first people I told about my experience with her.
He actually gave me a really good recommendation for grad school and helped me get into an awesome graduate program, which is how I ended up meeting my ex-wife who was just then the angel that saved me from the miserable fate, and helped me get to a place where I can be of love and of service today.
I'm so grateful for that.
Thank God that I have this to share with you here today.
Now, this to me is the most interesting and emotional, this is the most critical part of my experience in law enforcement. This brings in a lot of my worst insanity in law enforcement. This brings in a lot of the kind of workplace drama. This brings in a whole lot of different things, but there is so much more still to go into.
I've got tons more individual stories. I've got lots more stories about individual calls that happened, things that shocked me, things I couldn't believe like, "This is how we police here? This isn't law enforcement. This is prejudice. This is biased and I'm helpless to even do anything about it."
So, I've got a ton more stories.
I hope you have enjoyed this. I have heard so many people have had crazy drama with relationships. This is my crazy drama. This is the worst and the craziest I hope it ever gets in this life and this was a horror story.
Hellish!
I actually had about a month, for the only time that I've had so far in my life, I lost my appetite. It was really cool actually. One night I was all broke up after the dispatcher thing had happened when we just started night shift again.
I remember trying to talk myself into, "You need to eat something."
I wasn't hungry at all, which is weird because most of my life I've been ferociously hungry all the time from a baby on.
I said, "You need to eat something. You're going to die if you don't eat something."
So, I talked myself into a sub from Beezer's. Not exactly the perfect nutrition you are looking for, and I didn't eat anything the entire rest of the day.
I had a bunch of days like that. I dropped like 15 or 20 pounds in a month. This thing hit me so bad and I realize today that's the tip of the iceberg of what's possible in life.
I'm grateful to have this story to share with you today. I've shared these
things because hearing stuff like this has made a huge difference in my life.
The people who have honestly shared these stories, the kinds of stories lots of us would only share with our closest friends or families, or maybe not even tell this ever again to anyone, these kinds of stories helped me see what honesty looks like, what truth looks like, what recovery looks like, what it is like to have a nice peaceful life.
It is you share what your drama was like honestly and you tell the truth with it.
So, I'm honored you have gotten through this whole long dispatcher
story. I've got a ton more stories I hope you will love and enjoy.
Thank you for making it here. I love you.
You are awesome.
I appreciate you sharing this experience with me.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.