I know several people, including many friends, who have gone to college, gotten their degrees, started careers—many becoming teachers—and then turned to longshoring.
Ed Storti, a native San Pedran, is one of those rare individuals who had one of those highly coveted ILWU books and gave it all up to complete a college education, earn a master’s degree, and enter a white-collar profession.
Of course, after you’ve read his memoir, The Uninvited Guest: From the Docks to the Doorsteps, you realize he made the right decision, although it wasn’t immediately apparent as he struggled with anxiety and addiction. His journey to sobriety and learning how to help others as the developer of motivational intervention form the basis of his story.
When Storti, now 83, was still a child, his longshoreman father moved the family to Lomita. Although raised in a stable, stereotypical Italian-American household, Storti was traumatized early on by a dog bite that left him fearful and insecure.
He joined the National Guard soon after graduating from Narbonne High (1961) and then joined his father on the waterfront, all the while descending into alcoholism. It took another traumatic event—a nearly fatal accident on the docks—that led him to reconsider the path he was on and that what he really wanted to do with his life was make a difference.
Along the way, he connects with a number of people who, in his words, become wingmen or wingwomen, helping him through the various stages of life that lead him to success in both his family life and career. The book is filled with names San Pedrans will be familiar with, including several old friends of mine.
At Narbonne, he got some helpful advice from teacher Sam Domancich. He got some equally good advice from another teacher while at Harbor College, Gordon Wells. Later, working at Toberman Settlement House and coaching youth football, he got to know Rene Monroy. Later in life, after establishing his own private consulting business, he hired Mary Margaret Lorenzi as his office manager. And, of course, there are his longshore buddies, too numerous to mention here.
Supporting him through thick and thin is his wife, JoAnn (nee Car), a San Pedro High grad (W`62) he met in 1965 at a dance hall; they will celebrate 57 years of marriage later this year. Their children, daughter, Kari, and son, Kris, have successful careers in medicine and law, respectively.
In the early 1970s, Storti was still working full-time as a longshoreman and still drinking, but had completed his AA degree at Harbor with the goal of coaching or pursuing a career in law enforcement. He had just started classes at Cal State Dominguez Hills when, while working at a steel job in Long Beach, a one-ton beam came loose and rolled onto his leg. After several surgeries and months of long and painful rehabilitation, he recovered but never considered returning to the docks.
While at Dominguez Hills in 1975, Storti, suffering from blackouts and becoming more desperate to end his addiction to alcohol, started attending AA meetings and then entered a treatment program at Long Beach Memorial. Finally sober, he ended up working at the fledgling addiction treatment center at what was then San Pedro Peninsula Hospital, where, under the mentorship of Dr. Bill Rader, he began what became a nationally known career leading interventions.
The book contains inspiring stories of how his unique approach helped change and, in many cases, save the lives of people with an addiction. It explains the book’s title: It’s the family and friends of a loved one who seeks out his help, never the addict. In fact, the addict is often openly hostile to the interventionist, who, as the title suggests, appears uninvited at their doorstep.
Storti has written two previous books—Crisis Intervention and Heart to Heart: The Honorable Approach to Motivational Intervention—but The Uninvited Guest reveals the man behind the method that has made a difference in countless lives.
All of his books are available at Amazon or his website, thestortimodel.com. spt
SPT
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