ALCHOLICS ARE NICE PEOPLE (Buzz Aldrin)

FROM THE TORONTO DAILY STAR

Former astronaut Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, who disclosed his drinking problems some time ago said he became an alcoholic several years before his 1969 moon walk and quit drinking just two days before the Apollo 11 flight.

Aldrin, now working as an electreonics consultant, said he had previously established a drinking pattern that included two-week breaks and he returned to the habit shortly after he came back to earth.

Speaking at the hospital where he stayed during a month-long recovery program, he described his struggle for sobriety as one of the top events of his life.

Wearing a buttron reading Alhoholics Are Nice People, Aldrin told 400 recovered alcoholics the struggle was constantly threatened by tensions of daily existence and a depression that sometime enveloped him "like a black tide."

After the Apollo flight, Aldrin said, he was returned to the Houston space centre where "I really started getting nasty. I was put on the pedestal and I couldn't cope."

His first realization that he was drinking heavily came when he was 22, he said, and he vowed not to drink while on combat duty as a fighter pilot during the Korean War.

But his resolve evaporated, because the military image of fighter squadron members was measured by who could drink the most, he said.

Aldrin added he did not advocate legal restrictions on alcohol, but would like to see early education on its possible consequences.

Don says: You are hearing from a man who has been from earth to the moon and back. Quite an achievement! In my eyes a greater achievement was achieved by this great man. HE QUIT DRINKING! Even the best of us can get the habit.