Former batterer owns up to extent of his abuse.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - Providing he can continue to stay sober and free from his abusive tendencies, Joe Lunak serves as a shining example of a program that appears to be working.

As he talks, Lunak sweeps his hands across the table nervously, as if he's trying to wipe his slate clean by confessing the years of verbal and emotional abuse he forced his wife to endure. But Lunak knows nothing can right those wrongs. The best he can do is focus on the future.

Born in Roseburg, Lunak moved to Eugene in 1988 with his second wife, whom he met nine years earlier on a painting job. He spotted her walking down the street and asked if she'd like to have coffee with him.

The first two years, they were friends only, partying together, Lunak said - but that wasn't the foundation of the relationship. On a whim, the couple married in Reno in 1983. For the first 10 years, Lunak says, the marriage went fine.

But after a decade, Lunak says he grew resentful when he'd arrive home to no dinner, or a messy house. Before long, he was calling her "worthless," among a string of obscenities. Before he knew it, Lunak had become an abusive husband.

"I was ruthless," he said. "Terrible. If anybody treated me like that for even a minute, I'd take a gun and kill them."

This went on for 10 more years, until May 10, 2002 - a date Lunak does not have to pause to remember. The couple had been drinking at a local bar, and Lunak was high on marijuana and methamphetamine. The couple had a friend drop them off near their house, at Bender's Landing on the North Fork of the Siuslaw River. Lunak remembers attacking a blackberry bush, in a drunken rage, his hands full of thorns by the time his friend returned to take the couple back home.

After that, he blacked out. It wasn't until he awoke in a Florence jail cell that he found out what happened, when he was given a copy of the police report. He broke her arm and two of her fingers, punched her in the eye. She needed stitches in her head.

"I'd done a lot of bad things," he said. "But I never ever thought the day would come that I would do that."

The day had come. Convicted of fourth-degree assault, Lunak was ordered not to contact his ex-wife, and he hasn't seen or heard anything of her since. He was sentenced to time served, two years probation and ordered to complete several anger management and alcohol abuse courses - including a batterers intervention program administered by Siuslaw Outreach Services.

At weekly meetings, Lunak learned about himself. At first, the overriding emotion was shame. His truck impounded, Lunak walked to work three miles each day, feeling the stares of a town small enough for plenty of people to know what he'd done.

"It was like I was wearing it on my head," he said. "Wife beater, wife beater, wife beater."

But the classes helped, he said. He'd blamed the abuse on alcohol and drugs. But his teacher, Erin Leonard, taught Lunak that he'd developed an attitude about women that could only result in bad things.

"You take drugs and alcohol away, you've still got Joe Lunak, who believes women are going to do what you want them to do - or else," he said.

This was not an easy revelation, nor were the requirements of the batterers course. Lunak struggled with his "paperwork" - worksheets, diagrams and other exercises that helped him understand that domestic violence applies to much more than physical abuse. But Leonard was always there to help him through a tough spot. She always treated him like a human being. And she let him know he had a choice. He could stick with the classes or give up and do his time.

"The class taught me not to look at whose fault it was, but to look at my part in it," he said.

Lunak has been clean and sober since 2002, he says. He has since reconnected with his first wife and the mother of his only child, whom he left decades ago because she didn't approve of his partying. He's lost many a job because of what happened, but most people are forgiving, he said. He only wishes he could apologize to the woman he abused.

CAPTION(S):

"The class taught me not to look at whose fault it was, but to look at my part in it."- JOE LUNAK, AFTER TAKING PART IN A BATTERER INTERVENTION PROGRAM