Little by Slowly

"I was a barroom drinker. I sang and performed in bars. I always had a drink next to me, even when I was shaving. I loved drinking. I started in high-end places and ended up in the nastiest of places at three or four o'clock in the morning. I never bought drugs but would certainly do yours. Cocaine, speed, downers, hash, marijuana, Quaaludes, etc. You were not in my life if you did not drink.

"I would panic and order five more drinks when I heard, 'Last call.' I had much more drinking to do. I always threw up after drinking and during drinking. Always.

"What a life. I had no life. I was a prisoner to my drinking. I had to drink, I wanted to drink, and I needed to drink. Then the booze turned on me, and I started to lose things and people. My marriage, jobs, and relationships with family members.

"'First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.'"

Jack Maloney was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to alcoholic parents. He endured a turbulent childhood, suffering harrowing abuse and one trauma after another. He escaped his dysfunctional family by joining the Marines at age seventeen. He proudly served in the Marine Corps from 1968 to 1972 as a radio operator in South Vietnam.

He worked twenty-five years for the Department of Veterans Affairs Vet Center Program and is a clinical social worker and addiction therapist specializing in PTSD and substance abuse.

Jack was an active alcoholic and drug addict for many years. He has been in alcohol recovery for the past thirty-seven years. His life is a testament of overcoming life's most difficult challenges.

Jack is a survivor turned thriver! His story, Little by Slowly: From Trauma to Recovery, takes readers from real loneliness and fear to an ever-living hope that we all need to thrive!