Alcohol-fueled fun and games at the University of Washington have brought a lot of unwelcome attention to Fraternity Row in recent years. But from what Tom K. says, it´s a problem that goes back a long way.

Tom was a frat member in the early Fifties when he learned how to drink to excess. "I was the life of the party,:" he recalled. "Like any good budding alcoholic, I was always in charge of the punch bowl, so I had to get there early to sample the product. By the time everyone else got there, I was smashed. But they all loved me. I was the entertainer, and always got a good response.

"Phi Gamma Delta was one of the few fraternities that had a ´no drinking in the house´ policy, so we had to do our big drinking at class parties before the big event. My specialty was showing up in a hula skirt."

He almost killed himself with a drunken nautical stunt. When the fraternity rented a schooner to watch the UW crew races, Tom decided to go to the top of the 75-foot mast and dive into the lake. "I liked to dive from high places," he said by way of explanation. But on that occasion, he slipped on takeoff and missed the side of the boat by six inches.

Tom started his drinking late in life, compared to many of the A.A. members in this series of stories. He was 19 and living at home when he got into his parents´ liquor cabinet and put down nearly a fifth of bourbon. The next morning, his mother came into his bedroom with a glass of whiskey. "If you like it so much, here´s a glass for breakfast," she said. Desperately sick, he declined and swore off drinking forever. Oh, yeah!

All through his college years, the drinking progressed from bad to worse, but it didn´t prevent Tom from getting a commission in the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. He was drunk the night before the graduation parade at Quantico Marine Barracks and spent the next six months partying in Washington D.C. at every opportunity. In 1955, he shipped out for Japan and duty with the First Marine Air Wing.

He was there for 14 months; "it was a wild, wild time." Junior officers were invited to the master sergeants´ club every Friday, "where they tried to get me drunk and obviously succeeded even though I drank a quart of milk in advance to try to protect myself."

The highlight of his overseas drinking career was his dangerous encounter with a pair of bouncers at a Hong Kong night club. Tom had flown down from Tokyo as officer in charge of 60 Marines on an R&R trip. "I made a scene at this night club, you know, the Ugly American, and refused to pay for the service. The manager followed me outside, and finally, I threw his money down on the sidewalk and left. But the bouncers followed me ´til I found a cab and got out of there."

When he came back to Seattle, honorably discharged, his father got him a job as a municipal bond salesman, and he was good at it. That led to his first marriage and first child and, as he moved up the ladder, more and more drinking. "It was the high life-good restaurants, lots of entertaining. But the boss began to hear stories that didn´t help my career."

For example: during the Seattle World´s Fair in 1962, he had a drinking buddy who worked there. One day, the guy called to say he´d lined up a ride in the Goodyear blimp. On board, Tom asked the pilot how close he could come to the 13th floor of the Norton Building, where his office was. "The boss did a double take. I was drunk, of course.

"Another time, I found myself doing a Jose Greco dance on the stage of the Spanish Pavilion ´til the cops ran us out. When I got outside, it was raining hard and I fell into a ditch. Then, I couldn´t find my car and finally took a cab home, where my wife threw my new suit in the trash. It took me three days to find my car."

While all this was going on, his marriage was falling apart. His wife did the traditional control thing, pouring out his liquor. Tom countered by pouring a supply into the garden hose, and burying bottles under favorite plants. "She was always surprised when I went out to the garden and came back drunk,," he said.

In two days, three things happened: "I got my first DUI, I was fired and I was told to leave the house.." the latter after seven years of marriage and two children. Tom went to live with his brother and hung out at a favorite bar in Issaquah. At home, he threw his empties into a vacant lot next door. Some years later, a subdivider told his brother he found 150 bottles there.

Things only got worse, if that was possible. He finally went to live at Pioneer, a halfway house, wangled his way back into the investment business and collected "five or six" more DUIs. Broke and sitting in the Shelton jail, he called a loving aunt in Mercer Island to come and bail him out. He didn´t mention he was in jail, only gave her the address. She got him out anyway, and he repaid her by drinking her cooking sherry.

Tom moved into the YMCA to try to sort out his problems, then stayed with his grandfather for awhile. Somewhere along the line, an old friend got him a job as a real estate salesman and assigned him to sit on an open house. "Beautiful place," he recalled. "I decided to have a party, and invited a bunch of friends over to drink the owner´s booze. Yep. Fired again.

His family was willing to spend serious money on their problem son, so he went through four psychiatrists, two lockup wards and a trip to the Hazelden treatment program in Minnesota. He arrived at the latter drunk out of his mind. Hazelden didn´t help.

Back in Seattle, back in jail and needing $1000 to get out, he called a woman friend for help. "I suggested she could sell her house in Laurelhurst to raise the money. Ah, the insanity." Another time, a fraternity brother who´d taken him in gave him A.A.´s phone number, and he actually went to one meeting. "I came home with the 12&12 and the Big book, did the 12 Steps in one night, put the book under the bed and kept drinking. His buddy kicked him out.

During one of his stints in jail, he noticed an ad for a janitor at the Washington Athletic Club. He got out and got the job, the best janitor the WAC ever had, as he modestly recalls. When he met an old colleague from the investment business in the elevator, the man did a double take, but Tom just picked up his mop and broom and went to work. He even got a job for a friend there. They both got drunk to celebrate on the new man´s first day. The latter was promptly fired and Tom placed on probation. He responded with another drunk and passing out in a bathroom. That was the end.

Years later, he became a dues-paying member of the WAC.

We´re getting close to his physical, emotional, mental and spiritual collapse now. He was in Swedish Hospital with acute alcohol poisoning when some life-changing events converged. An attorney who came to see him told him he had to change or else. "I didn´t negotiate. I just promised to do whatever it took. That was my definition of total surrender." He met a lady in a room down the hall who helped him start his spiritual recovery. The capper was a visit from two Businessmen for Christ, who helped him to see that "there was nothing left but death, and I didn´t want to die."

But he wasn´t quite through being stupid. "I wanted to go out in style, so I sneaked out of my room to a nearby bar for a two final double martinis. All hell was breaking loose when I got back to room. The staff was extremely upset. So was I, but that was my last drink." That was on Oct. 10. 1966, the beginning of a life of sobriety that has lasted far longer than his drinking life.

Tom says many people helped him along the way, both before and after he became sober. Among those he mentioned were Judge Charles Z. Smith, then a municipal judge, Judge Robert Elston, Father Barney Nixon and Jack Dalton. Dalton, founder of Pioneer Industries, hired him as assistant director. Over the years, he got back into the investment business and worked in Houston and San Francisco as well as Seattle before retiring three years ago.

"With the gift of sobriety, I knew I had to carry the message for the rest of my life," Tom said. "It was only a couple of days after that last drink that a feeling of peace and serenity came over me that I had never had before," Tom said. It was that determination which led him to jobs with recovery centers and service with various groups like Eastside Alcoholism Referral Agency, Lakeside Recovery Services and the State Advisory Council on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

And the old fraternal connections are still in play. He is certified as a counselor of fellow fraternity members who are in treatment at the Betty Ford Center.

Interviewed by Angus L. and Dick S. Written by Dick S.