Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple Nicks. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and, uh, I'll shift over. So you can see I've officially gotten a, uh, wallpaper permanent. I always usually have a different one for each episode, but I'm getting kind of tired of. Getting a new wallpaper for each episode.
So I've got a couple of nukes, uh, weeping prophet in ancient Old Testament, Hebrew and Adam across. And microphone for those who are just listening completely irrelevant to today's conversation, which we're gonna shift into now. Exciting. We're gonna get into military mental health, uh, both veteran and active duty.
Uh. Talking about one of, one of my favorite subjects, actually, just speaking of Hebrew, is um, the verse of the day, the other day was, do not let them look down on you for your youth. Uh, you know, because it is I who go with you, right? The fact that. God doesn't care about age. We've seen that throughout the Bible, not just with the youth, but on the opposite end, you're never too old to do anything.
And today we have a gentleman who at a, uh, while advanced in years, uh, took on a task, a mission, a journey that, uh, not many people would do while still young. Let it alone in their seventies. So I'm excited to talk to him and hopefully inspire all of y'all that wherever you are at your life, whether young or old, if you have a big journey you want to go on, uh, it's never too early or late, you know, as long as you have the proper mindset.
And we're gonna talk with our guest today about. Other than mindset, what else do we need to accomplish these big tasks in our life? But Mr. Rand Timmerman, I've rambled on, so I'd love to pass it over to you to, uh, share a little bit about yourself before we get into today's conversation. Okay. Well, thank you very much for this opportunity.
Yeah. My brother Ron, who's was 71, um, decided to hike the Appalachian Trail because the love of his life, Edie. Had died and um, she had a stroke and then a bunch of mini strokes. And so he took care of her for six years. Wow. And, uh, we both Vietnam veterans, my brother was in the Army, I was in the Marine Corps, both saw quite a bit of combat.
Came back just a fair amount of trauma from that. And, uh, but my brother, when he came back, uh, my mother's best friend was Ededie. Who was 14 years older than my brother divorced with seven kids. And the next thing I knew, he's running around in a converter with her. She's wearing a miniskirt, red cowboy boots and they're going line dancing.
Wow. And he fell madly in love and they had a great life. Um, she was in the Mormon faith. They went to Utah, um, and lived out there with seven kids. Ended up with 7 27 grandchildren. And 27 great-grandchildren. That's, that's a lot. That's, that's, that's a lot. And when he, when she passed, he was just devastated.
And um, I reached out to him 'cause I knew how close they were. I had never even been to his house in 40 years in Utah. But I went out to see him and we went hiking in the desert and uh, he told me, I'm gonna walk the Appalachian Trail now. I had done a fair, luckily we were both pretty good shape. Um, he did a lot of hiking in, in, in the west in Utah, and I did a lot of hiking, uh, over the years with my kids and things like that.
And I ran a bunch of marathons and, uh, I drank too much at times. I was a. I used alcohol to mask some of my, um, PTSD from the Vietnam War. We didn't even know what it was at that, you know, back in those days, right? So here we end up these two really old guys going on a hike from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Caden Mountain in Maine through 13 states, 2,190 miles, 600 mountains.
465,000 feet and elevation changes. And when we started out, it was snowing. I thought it was, I thought it was the craziest idea that we could ever possibly had. I ended up writing a book about it and I, uh, took 5,000 pictures. Was 500 pictures in the book. But what I did, it originally was because I wanted to have something for our family to have.
About, about 3 million people hike on it. Some part of the Appalachian trail every year, but only about three thou, somewhere between 20 503,000 actually try to hike it the whole length. Right, right. Of that about 17%, which is about about 450 people actually do it, is extremely difficult. I had an artificial knee from a bad motorcycle accident.
So my one leg was half inch lip. I like to brag that I limped I the o limps man that ever walked the Appalachian Trail. That's the title to have for sure. I gotta say that's um, it is inspiring though. It was funny 'cause I'm, I'm in Georgia right now and, uh, it's not snowing although. Um, as soon as you walk outside, you will be drenched, uh, because it is just so humid and so unbearably hot right now.
So, uh, starting, what was the, uh, reasoning behind starting in the wintertime? Was it to kind of start difficult and get easier as it went along, or was that just the way it lined up? No, that's a really good question. Um, it's 2,190 miles in the mountains. For me, for example, at that age I was hiking five or six miles a day or walking or whatever.
There's it's totally different world. Yeah. And have you ever been to Fontana Dam in Georgia? It's right at the, I have not. I added to the list now to reference back to this episode. Yeah. So the first 80 miles or so go from Springer Mountain, which is in the northern part of Georgia to Fontana Dam, and then you work your way up into the Tennessee.
Uh, and then eventually Tennessee, uh, and the North Carolina border, and you get up into the Smoky Mountains and, and so on and so forth. Yeah. So, you know, you got 3000 people. Most of 'em are gonna go north from Springer Mountain because they can leave earlier. If they go from Canada Mountain, they're gonna have to wait, wait until June or July.
It's gonna take you five or six months. Even the good, you know, the hardy. It's, it's a long haul. We averaged, uh, about 11 miles a day, which is freaky. That's a, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was a, a lot. And I actually wrote in the book, my brother didn't know it, but I, I wrote in the book that I figured two weeks max, another one, he got the book.
He goes, what, what? You didn't think we could do it? No, I didn't think we could do it. Oh my God, I was in so much pain, you know, freezing at night. Your shoes would be frozen. Put 'em out in the morning. Go. Right. So how, how, how long did it take y'all to complete again? It took us about, altogether about eight, eight months.
We did, uh, in 20, we left March 22nd in, uh, 2018. I was 72 Ron 71. Uh, we figured we were gonna go the whole distance that year, but we didn't, we didn't make it the whole way We went, I think he told me 1400 and some miles and, uh, we got into, we were in New York actually. And, uh, um. I dunno. We came out when it was one of those days with a hundred degrees, we both lost like 35 pounds.
So we'd gone from 180 5 down to 1 55. I mean, I'm a high school weight. Yeah, yeah. The, the fatigue factor. And I came out one day and he was waiting for him and he looks at me, he says, you wanna go home? I said, sure. So we went home, but then we ended up going back the next year and I ended up falling down a rock slide in, uh.
Massachusetts and really banging myself up really bad. I couldn't even walk. So we went off for about a month. I thought we were done at that point. And then Ron said, well, you want to try to finish it? I said, sure. We went back, I didn't know 300 miles, but uh, I had done real damage. So when he finished it with his brother or with his son, Rick, Rick hike the first two weeks, uh, with us in 2018, and then he did the last end of it up to Canadaian Mountain with Ron.
Uh, and I was in the hospital getting a new hip, so I couldn't do it, but I only did 1,865 miles, so. You say, you say that, uh, ly but that's more than most people. Like you said, the statistics of how many people have done that, so that's amazing. And uh, so the way I, I take it and, and correct me if I'm wrong, so y'all had a tent and snack bags packed for this, this eight month journey, right?
You were just setting up camp whenever you were done doing your. Miles for the day? Is that kind of how it worked or no? No, actually we, so I asked my brother when I was there in January before we went on the hike. I says, how are you gonna do this? He says, well, I'm gonna ride the bus down to Springer Mountain and start walking.
Like I said, I had done a fair amount of hiking in the Smoky Mountains and stuff. I'm like, that's crazy. There's just no way. So what we ended up doing, we drove two vehicles down. I had my vehicle and he had his, if you look at it, at the maps on the, this is what we did on the Appalachian Trail, there's roads, a lot of 'em are very bad roads, dirt roads, and so on.
Across the Appalachian trail, every 10 to 15 miles. Okay, so what we did was we started Springer Mountain. He drove up to the next road, I don't remember how far it was, probably 12 miles, something like that. And then he would hike south. I would hike north, and then he would get my truck and come back up to where his car was on the Appalachian Trail.
And then we would just stay right there. And then the next morning, most of the time, he would drive north to the next road. Get, get to where it crossed the Appalachian Trail. I would go north, he would go south and uh, that's how we did it. There were sec. There's sections like what's called the Priest in Virginia.
There's a section there, and then in the Smoky Mountains there's two sections, 35 miles. We had to carry a full pack. Most of the time I was carrying a pack, about 20 pounds. I would carry. 24 ounces of bottles of water. And I had a first aid kit and some other things 'cause a lot of the hikers were not well prepared and people would get dehydrated first aid kits with a lot of snakes, bears.
Uh, I saw, uh, coyotes in a pack at one point. Went right by me. Running like hell. And I couldn't figure out what the, what was that all about? And then I saw the bear, right? I don't know who was after whom, but yeah, there was a lot of exciting things that went, that happened. Uh, I could tell you story after story, and they're, and they're all in the book.
And then I'm a recovered alcoholic. So in the book, I, I talk about my recovery program. That's why it's entitled A Spiritual Passage. My brother was. A bishop in the Mormon church. Very religious man his whole life. I was the, I hate to say it, antichrist, you know, I came outta Vietnam, uh, bitter, kind of a bitter man.
I lost a lot of buddies and, uh, banged up pretty good. My brother was pretty well banged up too. And then there's the whole mental, emotional aspect of it. I used alcohol to, uh. Medicate, my brother maintained a pretty good relationship with, uh, with his higher power. So, uh, at 68 years old, I was a complete wreck.
I was no longer a functioning human being. Alcohol, you talked about your dad losing the weight, all that kind stuff and that other thing I, I listened to and, uh, and uh, and you had it right. You got it right. And, uh. I looked in the mirror one day and I thought, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gone. I'm done. What? I, I'm not a man anymore.
What the hell am I? Wow. Just a piece of crap. I mean, it was, and, uh, I gave up. I, I got involved in the program and I did the deal and made a connection with a higher power. I was on my way to the liquor store. I'm on a 10 day air vodka vacation at my last, I'm talking about my last strong. And that's what I would do.
I would, I would start thinking about things and I would decide to, to drink again. Even though I'd promised myself I didn't wanna drink. I was so bad at the end, I did not wanna drink because I knew what was gonna happen. I had been on suicide watch hospitals and all that kind of stuff. And, um, so one day at the end of it, I decided to, uh, I was gonna get a gown and just finish the job.
Cherry vodka was my deal. And, uh. The problem was it was a Saturday morning and I, like I said, I've, I'm doing this for 10 days, so I'm a total wreck and I, uh, start walking to the liquor store and it's seven o'clock in the morning. Well, there's a problem. Liquor store doesn't open until nine. So I went and sat on this house in front Step, just sat down and the guy walked out with a fishing bull, turned out his name was Billy Cook.
He became my, uh, we call 'em sponsors, right. He came out and looked at me. He was kind of scared at first, and he is like, what's I, he could've called the police and said, arrest this guy. Get him off my property. But he didn't. He came over and looked at me and he says, oh, I know you. You're just like me. And he sat down next to me, turned, turned out he'd been a sober man for 30 years, and he came into the same program that I went into and, uh, helped a lot of men.
He took me to the hospital, spent the whole day with me there, got me four days later and took me to a, to a meeting and. And I looked at him, I said, do whatever you tell me to do. And what, do you know what the first thing he told me to do after that meeting? He said, pray to that God you don't believe in.
See, he, I had told him my story. I had told him stuff I had never told anybody before my whole life about the war. Okay. Things like that. And, uh, you were in the Navy, I'm sure you had some tough things. And, uh, so he knew what my predilection, he knew I was mad at God if on my best day. Worst day. I didn't even think there was one.
Right. So yeah. And so after that first meeting, he looks at me and he goes, you need to pray to God. And I'm starting to object, you know? And he says, or you'll get drunk again. And I started crying. I'm 68 years old and I can't stop drinking and he's killing me. And I looked at him and said, I'll do whatever you tell me to do.
He told me to start praying. A lot more to the story, but it worked. I've been sober 11 years now and I work a couple hours a day, at least every day working the program and helping other men or trying to, you know, changed my life. So, you know, that was in 20, uh, 14 and then what, uh, four years later, there's my brother, he needs me, and I was there.
I was ready. More or less. Yeah. So we went on this bike. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna go from limping in the mountains to humping the boonies. And that's to say, let's go back to the Vietnam era. Did you, uh, enlist, or were you drafted and what, how, what did you do, uh, while there and how did that kind of play out? Uh. I went to college when I got outta high school in 1964, but I didn't have any money and I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Went to a small state college called Oswego in upstate New York, and, uh, vicious winters there. And I'm, I'm going to college and I was, uh, working three, I was working as a janitor from midnight to eight every morning. And I was working as a pin setter in a bowling alley 'cause I didn't have automatic pin setters yet.
Hmm. And, uh, and my life sucks. And the only thing I liked to do is drink. And I had a girlfriend that liked to drink, but I could never drink 'cause I never had any money. So one night I got drunk and uh, when I came to on the pool table the next morning, the, uh, the owner of the buyer came back in. I stayed there all night, apparently I passed out on the pool table and he came in, turned the radio on.
They were talking about first Marines. Going into Vietnam. And I sat up on that pool table and looked at him and he looked at me and I jumped down. I said, I'm gone. And I went and enlisted in the Marine Corps that, and within a couple days, a month later, I'm at the Air War Memorial in Syracuse, New York, raising my hand saying that I will defend my country against enemies, foreign, domestic.
And nine months later, I'm in a rice patty going, oh crap. What did I just sign? I think I made a big mistake. Yeah. So I want to go back. I know this is completely irrelevant, but I am a little bit younger than you, so I have to ask, after each person bold you and uh, once they had their second turn, you would go and manually set up all the pins in that lane.
Yes. Yeah, it was, so the way it worked was it's each, between each two lanes, there was a place where you could sit. It was cut out. So, and then the machines that, so what would happen is like, this guy's over here, Boeing hits the pins, they, they fall, right? Mm-hmm. When the, the thing re retracts, you jump in, you pick the pins up and you put 'em in the rack and when you've got it full, you pull lever and it comes back down.
And then in the meantime, the guy on the other side, the other, the next lane over, they throwing their ball. So a lot of times you go from one to the other, right? Right. But it was a really crappy job. It hurt a lot 'cause the pins don't always go straight, so they would hit you and on Friday nights they would.
Throw a ball, you would jump in to get the pins and they're drunk and they'd start throwing other balls. So you'd be in there picking up, you went from bowling to dodge ball. Yeah, that's, uh, that's so interesting to me. I never, you know, 'cause some stuff I just take for granted that I'm like, oh, they must have always had this, so at least I thought you were manually placing each of the pins.
I said, that's tedious mind-numbing work, but still gathering all of them and doing all of that. That's um. That's interesting. Uh, but you left that you went to Vietnam, and so were you, were you in the boonies, uh, right in the jungle? Uh, what was your position as far as like leadership or following and, um, how long were you in Vietnam for?
Well, I was in Vietnam for, uh, 13 months. I was with the first Marines in the first Marine division. We were in what's called Icorp, which is the most normal northern province of Vietnam. Uh. Uh, first Marines were west of De Nang. We were in the mountains jungle. Um, all kinds of, uh, bad critters, including the enemy.
Uh, I almost got killed by a crate snake one night, very deadly poisonous snake. Mm. Uh, we went as I went as far north is Cason, which is right on the northern, the DMV. At one point we were over by Laos and we captured some Chinese soldiers. A lot of people don't know we were fighting Chinese. Sometimes it, I mean, it was the Wild West.
It was total wild west. Yeah. Uh, I was a machine gunner at time. I went ambushes. I joined a reaction platoon. Uh, it was on a C one 30 that crashed with only one engine. Survived that and uh, I don't know, the story's just go on and on, but Yeah. Uh, one of the worst ones, I was machine gun on a helicopter. One of the first times we went out, uh, we went into a hot zone and, uh, we were getting fired at.
Pilot wouldn't land. I didn't understand that. So he, I ran in and took in the ammo and water and brought out Wounded Marines to load the helicopter. And then when we got, and then we took off. Well, that's pretty hard to do, you know, when it's not on the ground. Yeah. So I'm, I'm complaining to the pilot on the, on the headset.
Uh, well, my, on, I'm on machine gun, why he didn't land. And when we got back to the base, he gets the map out. He's walking towards me. Because he's a captain and I'm a, I think I was a Lance Corporal E three at that time. And uh, and I wrote about this in the book. Um, and uh, he said, you wanna know why I didn't land?
And I said, no. And he says, look at this. You see what that is? Where we were. It was a minefield. Wow. Yeah. So that means you were out running around the minefield? Yeah, I'm running through the minefield, taking water and ammo and bringing guys back and loading 'em on the helicopter. So after that, every time he didn't land, you knew why.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I've had, uh, a couple different Vietnam veterans on the show. Uh, some of my favorite people to talk to. It's, uh. I sometimes I have a hard time believing it Almost. Uh, some of the things that y'all went through and experienced, it doesn't seem real. And um, a lot of them talked about, uh, helicopters not landing, uh, not because the minefields, but in their case they had to clear trees and literally make a hole for the helicopter to even get a ladder in, let alone land.
And, um, trying to shoot up flares and cut down trees while under fire fighting the enemy. So. Uh, a completely different world than, than what we live in now and how warfare is now. So, uh, like you said, you've got that story. And then are most of your stories in your book as well from Vietnam, or is that kind of just briefly touched upon?
I touched on the ones that related to what was going on on a particular day or when I was talking about my recovery, uh, and my drinking and, and some of the, you know, trauma. I dealt with, I had really bad nightmares when I came back for a long, long time. I mean, bad, bad, it would just drive a, it'd drive you nuts.
And, um, reliving, horrors, you know, in the war. Yeah. At one point we ran outta ammo. I used a bayonet and, uh, so I would have a nightmare where I'd be in a battle and then I would get stabbed with a bayonet and die. You know, that kind of, mm-hmm. That kind of thing. And in those days when we came back, there was no PTSD hadn't been invented yet.
There was no treatment. Guys would go on leave and um, right after I came back, guys would be like a sergeant. He'd have all his stripes and medals, a war hero, you know, really tough guys. They go on leave for 30 days, they go to the ocean, they get booze, and they get in a motel room and they just drink their brains out for 35 days.
Then they would come back and the Marine Corps would court marshal 'em. And the next thing you know, these guys are, they're PFC. Yeah. What the heck? Sad reality. Which was reality. Yeah. And that happened to, I had good friends that, that drank themselves to death or committed suicide. And I lived with that too, you know?
Um, but no, I didn't write about all my stories in there. I'm actually probably gonna do another book about some of this stuff that happened, but, so. When I met a bunch of guys in, uh, when we were up by Clean Stone in the Smoky Mountains, I spent a couple nights with a bunch of, uh, helicopter pilots from the army.
There was a bunch of 'em. They did this every, they were hiking for a long weekend and I kind of hooked up with them. So that's when we started talking about, you know, Vietnam and me being a machine gunner and all that, right? And that, so I told them that story and they were like, oh yeah, that's crazy. You know, it was that kind of war veteran type.
Things that you talk about, those guys have been Iran or Iraq or whatever. Mm-hmm. Afghanistan. Yeah, not Iran. So what I wanna focus on is kind of, you know, obviously there's a lot that happened during your time in Vietnam afterward, and of course you had your whole journey through the mountain. So let's, I wanna tie all three together, which is what really affected you the most from Vietnam.
You mentioned the nightmares and then, um, kind of. Coping with the, uh, alcohol to deal with the emotions. What kind of emotions were you feeling? Was it survivor's guilt? Was it imposter syndrome? Was it regret? Was it just, um, emotional detachment from the rest of the world? Uh, did you feel like you kind of didn't fit in anywhere?
What was going through your mind for what seems sounds like a couple decades after Vietnam? Yeah. Um, that's a good question. Um, so. I was also a, um, they commissioned me, they called 'em Mustang Lieutenants. Okay. In, in the World War ii they called 'em combat Lieutenants. So the last couple months they made me a lieutenant.
'cause lieutenants didn't last long sometimes. And uh, so I did that the last couple months. And when I came back they said, you can go back to being a corporal. And actually, I got promoted to Sergeant during that time. But I was wearing the li, I was doing the lieutenant's job, so, or you can go to OCS. So I ended up going to OCS and got commissioned, and then I became a forward observer, but I ended up being a JAG officer.
And I really liked doing that. So when I got out, I went to college and got my BA and then I got my law degree and I became an attorney. So that's why my book, it says, you know, Rand Turman, Esquire. Yeah. For those of us, uh, who aren't military, 'cause I, I rec, rec, I recognize the jag term.
For those of us who aren't military for civilian listeners, what is a jag? A Judge General. Yeah, you're acting as a lawyer. When I went to the training for that, there was a hundred of us, 99 of 'em were captains who had just gotten outta law school and done the basics, the OCS and the basic school. And I'm a second lieutenant and I don't have a college education, so I probably found out 50 years later I was probably the last.
Enlisted man to become a commissioned officer without a college education and maybe the only JAG officer ever. I mean, he was a fluke. And the funny part was that when we got there, these guys are all, you know, they wanna party every night. And that, of course, I me too, right? I decided not to during the week, and I studied my brains out.
I ended up being the honor man of the platoon, and it all really ticked them off. But the, the thing was that I realized I can do this. I'm, I got a knack, right? First two guys, I was a defense counsel. One of 'em was, uh, for sleeping on watch, which in the Marine Corps is like, you, you're going to, you know, you're going to the brag.
Yeah. Uh, I came up with a hokey dokey. Alibi for him and he got off. So another guy, I did a couple more and I got another guy off. Now these are not juror, the jurors are officers, right? Majors, lieutenants, mm-hmm. Or Lieutenant Colonels or whatever. So they made me a prosecutor. So I spent the rest of my career in the, uh, Marine Corps being a prosecutor.
Uh, and this, this was, you had left Vietnam, or you're doing this in Vietnam? No, no. I only did one tour in Vietnam. I never went back. Okay. I had a guardian, uh, I didn't know it at the time, but I had a guardian. I had a, a gunnery sergeant who became a, he was a Mustang lieutenant and a captain, and, uh, he's the one that got me into Jag school.
And then every time I, but I had also become a forward observer, so I was probably gonna go back, right. And he knew if I went back, I probably wouldn't make it. So every time I was supposed to go back, he'd send me down to a. Puerto Rico and, uh, we had a, we had a contingent down there and, uh, and I would do the article 32 trials for a month, and I'd come back.
And so finally I said, well, how come I haven't gone to Vietnam again? He said, what do you think I'm sending you down there for Roosevelt Rose is the name of the basin, Puerto Rico. So he was, he saved me. Wow. And I didn't go back. I got married, had my first child, and, but um, yeah, the nightmares were bad. I was a very hard worker.
I was devoted father. I mean, I really took that stuff seriously, but I knew that alcohol was gonna be a problem. So someday I knew it. The first time I drank at 13, I, I knew I was, I got totally wasted with another kid who was 200 pounds. I was a hundred. We crawled home. I. I laid on the bed, this room is spinning, and I looked up and I realized if I rotated my eyes at the same rate, this room is spinning.
I didn't get, I didn't get sick and I didn't wake up with a headache. I didn't feel great, but there's a piece of advice for everyone. Yeah. Well, I made a conscious vow. This is probably gonna be a problem because I just liked it so much. It made me feel like a hundred bucks, you know, a million dollars. I felt like I was six foot five.
Like, I felt like I was Clint Eastwood, man. I got it. You know? Yeah. And here I am, a yeah, I'm a skinny, you know, five foot, eight, whatever. And, uh, so I made a vow. I would never do drugs, not even pop. I never did, but I knew alcohol was gonna get me at some point. And with between the nightmares, I had got all kinds of excuses.
But deep down inside, you know, today we know that alcoholics Pro metabolize alcohol differently. It's a, it's a phy physiological fact. Our bodies produce cannot process acetone. So what happens is we, when we drink, we get thirstier and thirstier. That's that feeling that acetone gives us, right. It's a complicated chemical reaction, but that's what ha.
Alcoholics are, have a disease. It's recognized by the American Medical Association. I think that happened in 1955, something like that. And I seen it. I see it every day. And some guys just never gals, women too, of course. Um, it's, it's horrible you talked about your dad. I feel, I feel for him. I wish I could help him.
You know? Yeah, me, me too. And it's not just in, uh, I believe the statistics are one in seven people minimum. Uh, know someone who is addicted to alcohol or drugs, you know? So it's, uh, and I, I've yet to meet someone who doesn't know someone who's dealing with that. It's, uh, it's a huge issue. It, you know, the alcohol was only one part of, of everything going on in your life.
You mentioned earlier in the episode kind of how you got. Done with the alcohol abuse in, you know, 11 years of sobriety, but with the alcohol disappearing from your life, what then became the medium through which you dealt with the nightmares, the other emotions from Vietnam in your life. You talked about the reform in the, uh, use of alcohol, but what about the rest of your life?
What then became that substitute to help heal my higher power through my recovery program? Um, I had a horrible relapse history between the time I was 65 and 68, and I would, uh, I could manage, uh, I would go to some meetings and things like that and, uh, using my tremendous willpower. I could go 90, 95 days without a drink and then I would just decide, I would get upset.
Have a bad dream. What? It didn't matter really. Right? Broken shoelace. I would decide, I would UNM admit that I was polished over alcohol and I said, I'm going just get drunk again like I used to. I'll be all right. Like I used to, you know? And then four or five days later, I remember the first time this happened to me, I'm in the, I come to, I'm in the hospital.
I, to this day, I don't know how I got there. I have no idea. Mm. And there's an old lady sitting by the window reading the paperback book, and hours are going by. I'm trying to figure, I don't feel good. I can't, I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened. And another lady comes with in with a book and they chitchat for a minute and she sits down by the window and the other one leaves and a few more hours go by, you know, nurse coming in, checking my vitals and stuff like that.
And, and finally I go, why are you here? I'll never forget this. And she goes, oh honey, I'm here to keep you company. My brain goes, you're on suicide watch. You're on suicide. Watch rand. What the, and then I go, well this is an aberration. This will never happen again. Oh yeah, it did. You know, and then I ended up in the va.
I got a, a ride in handcuffs to the VA in Syracuse and locked up on the sixth floor at, I don't, at that point I was like 67 years old in handcuffs. Go through. So phone doors to get in. It's really easy to go through those three doors to get in. It's really hard to get back out. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Three or four days later, I realized I'm just a drunk.
I'm sober now, you know, more or less. And I, and I'm in my right mind. These people are crazy. You know, I was in there with a captain that had been a company commander in Vietnam. Uh, and he and I walked the hallways for hours just talking to each other. 'cause we can relate, you know? Yeah. And, and that's really needed.
He didn't make it. He couldn't, he couldn't let it go. So to answer your question, my remedy was to, when I got sober through the blessedness of a higher power, beginning to realize I had to have some help from a higher power. You can, it can be whatever you want. It can be sober drunks in a room. It can be Jesus Christ, it can be a mountain, it can be whatever you wanna make it.
Uh. If you learn that you cannot, you are powerless. So alcohol and you can't manage your own life, then you need a higher power to help you. And that's what I, I turned my life, my will over to a higher power that doesn't want me to be drunk, that he wants me to be sober. So that's what I did and the nightmares went away.
And my whole life, it's been a joy. I've been, I was working with another guy here a while ago. I've worked with guys all the time. If I'm helping another alcoholic, and especially if most of the time they're a lot younger than me. Right. A lot of 'em have been in and out relapse histories. 'cause I, and they relate to me because I had that for a while, three and a half years before I got sober.
And uh, uh, one of 'em said to me one day, said Brent, 'cause now I'm 80 years old. I still hike every day, seven, eight miles. And you know, I'm a nice, pretty active guy. I, and he said, if you could change anything, would you go back like to your fifties or, and do something different? And I said, no, you wouldn't.
And I said, absolutely not, because I wouldn't know what I know now. Mm-hmm. Had all those experiences. The first guy that asked me to help him after meeting, I had done what we call the 12 steps. I had more or less done the program Right. I have a connection with a higher power. I don't wanna drink anymore.
The obsession's been lifted for me, thank God. That took about six months. And, uh, and a guy, young guy asked me to help if I would help him. And my brain was screaming, ran, you're not ready. Right? Because I mean, I'm always been sober for like a year. So I went and talked to Billy, who's, you know, my mentor if you will.
And uh, and he goes, I thought she was gonna say you're not ready. And, uh, but he did. He goes, Hey, Mr. That's great. Go for it, Billy. You're supposed to tell me I'm not ready. He goes, oh, you are ready. You got a lot of bad experience, a lot of bad experience, and now you've got a whole year of good experience.
And now I've got 11 years and Billy had 30 and he died with 35 years of sobriety. And I was, I was there to. He had an awful time at the end. He didn't drink or anything like that, but he had to have a leg cut off and, uh, it was horrible. He was in the ICU for four months. I went and saw him every day. A lot of times he wouldn't even know I was there.
But see, I opened. I wanted to be there. Yeah. With him. Yeah. So you've shared a couple different parts of your life, the Vietnam era, the. Recovery and the suffering post Vietnam, the alcoholism, and then the recovery from that and the transition to your sober life. And we know nowadays, you're an author. You mentioned your book earlier, who should really read your book and what can they get out of it?
You mentioned 500 photos, a spiritual passage, a journey, uh, full of advice, probably humor, and then also some dark stories. Uh, who should read this and, and really look into it. I think anybody who wants to hike the Appalachian Trail, and there's a lot of hikers out there. It's in a journal format, so it does, in the book, every other chapter we talk about where we hiked from it to each day, how many miles?
It was, mountains we went over. We tell a lot of funny stories, funny things that happened in there. Uh, a lot of humor. Um, uh, I had an encounter with a bear that was amazing. I talk about that. There's a lot of pictures of critters in there. I sat on a rock one day at the top of a mountain watching the raptors.
I'm just in like in heaven, you know? It's so beautiful. And another hiker walks up to me and she goes, uh, Rand. 'cause she, we knew each other. She was a lawyer too, actually. I hiked with her for a couple days and she goes, uh, Rand, do you know there's a copperhead under that rock you're sitting on? There you go.
Uh, yeah. That was kind of tricky. How do you It was cold. It was pretty cool that morning. So I don't think it was hyperactive or anything. I was think it was pretty subdued 'cause I stood up carefully and walked away and looked, I took a picture of it. It's in the book. And, uh, there were a lot of beautiful pictures in there, a lot of beautiful scenery on the trail.
Uh, it was an amazing experience. It was incredibly hard. I've never been so fatigued in my whole life. The title on the front of it, it says One Step at a Time. And, um, you know, there's the picture of the, the book it, I have a website Ran Timmerman. It's just my name, run together.com. It's very simple and uh, you can get it from Amazon, you know, through folks and whatever.
But, uh, I think the other people, I, anybody that's, I have a lot of friends. Are not doing well. There's something about old age, although some people are like me, that are just kind of like hyperactive all the time and I, I've never had to sleep more than four or five hours a night and I've had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of great accomplishments and, uh, but a lot of people at the end, I have a neighbor.
My God, it's so sad. Just sit in the rocking chair. They're not exercising their heart. Anybody who is struggling with any kind of difficulties, whether it be addiction, depression, uh, just don't like the way your life is going, you'll be, I've had a lot of people read it, said that it was very inspiring to them to think about how they're living their lives and what they might be able to do.
Because if you can do one step at a time. And there were a lot of days at the end, particularly, I fell down every day. I broke four poles. I mean, ugh, I took some pretty natural, right? Yeah. Uh, but I always remind myself, nobody's shooting at you. Ran the hell's your problem. Mm. Get up. Move. Right. So. I am hoping, and it seems to be the case that people who read the book are very, find it very inspiring.
And like you said, we all know people who are a depressed old age and they don't like their life. They don't, they all, they see the end of the road and it's kind of short and they don't like it. And really they can do a lot more than they think they can. I didn't think we could hike the trail. I'm not saying everybody's gonna read the book's gonna go out and hike the Appalachian Trail.
That's. No, that's not what it's about. Right? It's being motivated to think, give yourself credit that you can do more than you think you can. You don't have to sit at home on the couch watching stale movies and just thinking about dying. Right? Or if you are a young person, maybe you're, maybe you're going through a divorce.
I've been through, I've been married four times. You know, alcohol, you and character defects. You do stupid things when you're drunk. And I, and I did a lot of stupid things. Oh yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I don't know how well I'm answering your question, but I think it's a fairly broad veterans, there's a lot of veteran stories in there.
Some of 'em are funny. Um, there are a lot of veterans that were out there hiking. A funny story. So my, my trail name was Rand Bo, my brother. That's good. I, I do like that. Yeah, so my brother named me that his was attitude indicators that he was a, became a commercial pilot. And attitude indicator is a, is a instrument on a flight, on a airplane panel that tells you what attitude the airplane is in.
Right? Is it flat or is it twisted or, or whatever. So, uh, and we were up in. We were almost to into New Hampshire. We, we were well up there and by now there's nobody around. I'm pretty much hiking all day long by myself and my brother. 'cause he's going south. He would run into, he's only run into 2, 3, 4 people.
I mean, and uh, but this one day I ran into three or four people and they all go. Go. My name's ran Bo, what's your trail name? 'cause I wrote 'em down, put 'em in the book. Right, right. And they go, oh yeah, we met your brother. Can we have your picture? And they're putting their arms around me, you know, and the women are kinda like, what the heck?
And it just had a kind of a weird vibe. This happened like three times that day. So that night we're sitting, you know, I'm sitting by my tent getting ready to go to bed and stuff like that. And we're, and I go, bro, uh, something really weird's happening today. And, uh, I explained it to him and, and he didn't say anything.
He's kinda looking down and I go, what's going on Ron? What's going on? He, oh, nothing said, come on. He said, well, I told him your trail name and I told him that you were the real Rambo, the one that they made the movie about.
I said, you gonna get me killed. These guys are way Rambo. Yeah, that's great. Right. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's good. That's probably, um, trail names. I, I like that idea. I even hike in the trail for a while and I'm sure, um, a lot of the Vietnam books I've read, everyone had their Vietnam nicknames and, uh, when I was in the military, a lot of us had our military nicknames and it's, uh, it's a good way to raise morale and, you know, hopefully there's usually a good story behind it, or it's a good play on words.
And, um, yeah, what I wanted to say was what you reminded me of and, uh, we have a saying in the Navy called take a hit and keep going. Mm-hmm. Uh, I'm sure it's military wide and, um, you've kind of showed that you're the embodiment of that today. I especially thought about that when you talked about the, uh, the hike through the Appian, uh, know.
Hip injuries, limping, broken poles, like there was a lot of setbacks, um, sounds like pretty much, uh, every day or every week. And so you still pushed through that and, um, not just then, but throughout your life. Uh, you've already shared a lot of setbacks spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. And here you are guessing on podcasts, writing books, and sober.
So I think that in itself is inspiring. But yeah, for everyone who wants to get deeper into that inspiration, we're gonna have your book and website in a description below for them to check out. And like you said, if it's not for them. It can definitely be for someone they know. As we've both discussed, we know a lot of people going through a a lot of times and we've talked before on the show.
If anything else, uh, y'all, I'd like to encourage everyone listening to go on a nature walk or a hike sometime soon if you can. It's, um, I. There's a lot more for you than you would realize. It's, um, what we could call it spiritual passage. But, uh, Mr. Chima man, I'd like to thank you for coming on the show today and sharing everything that you have and, um, definitely want to have you back on.
If you ever make that a second book, definitely let me know and we can, uh, reconvene and see if you've taken more photos and hiked more trails for sure. Okay. Thank you Mr. Whiskey. Appreciate it.
