JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
It was time for "Happy Hour" at the Andrews Theater, but no one was serving drinks. Disguised as a standup comedy routine, this happy hour turned into a training session on avoiding at-risk drinking, drugs and suicide.
Comedian Bernie McGrenahan visited Joint Base Andrews on May 26 to talk to Team Andrews about his own life experiences with alcohol, drugs and suicide, passing his very serious message through comedy.
Mr. McGrenahan tackled relationships, the military, cars, his height, toilet paper and his experiences with his disabled brother before telling his own tale of the hardship alcohol and drugs have had on his life.
He said he started drinking as a teenager, telling the tale of how he and his friends would "only drink on the weekends" and "one night a week". His "one night a week" of drinking quickly became two, then three nights, plus weekends.
According to Mr. McGrenahan, this downward spiral due to alcohol continued through much of his young life. After two DUI's, being fired from his job, kicked out of school and forced to move back home with his mother, he was still not convinced he had a drinking problem.
He did, however, notice that alcohol and drugs were starting to take a toll on his brother Scott.
He said Scott was stealing money, started acting moody and depressed and skipped work. When he confronted his brother, Scott claimed to have things under control. An hour later Mr. McGrenahan was on his way home when he noticed police cruisers and an ambulance outside his house. His sister came running out of the house hysterical telling him not to go in the house, Scott had shot himself in the heart.
"When my brother took his life that day, that young, handsome man didn't think before he pulled the trigger that standing behind him was his mother and his father, his brother, his sister, his other brother, his uncles, his grandparents, and all his cousins and forty of us took that bullet with him," he said. "It went through every one of us and traveled in our heart and out our back. We live with that hole in our soul the rest of our lives."
Even this traumatic event wasn't enough to show Mr. McGrenahan that he had a problem with alcohol though. It wasn't until his third DUI charge and six months in the Los Angeles County Jail that he set himself straight.
While doing his time in county jail, he took a hard look at himself and knew he had to turn his life around. He made a vow to his mother and stayed true to that moment by not having a drop of alcohol in 22 years.
"I thought Bernie McGrenahan's message was very informative and heart-felt," said Tech. Sgt. Elizabeth Moore, 11th Logistics Readiness Squadron vehicle operations dispatcher. "I hope that after hearing what he had to say, people here realize the severity of their actions and don't drink and drive."
Mr. McGrenahan will continue his "Happy Hour" tour throughout the military and continue to share his life altering decisions through comedy.