Sunday Morning

I got up early this morning and headed out to a meeting and then to church. It was good to go to both. At the meeting, there was a woman who was celebrating 2 years of sobriety. Unfortunately, she has stopped going to meetings. There is definitely a difference between people who go to meetings and people who don't. (meeting makers make it, etc.) I hope she will start going to meetings again so that she can regain her happiness and regain a chance to stay sober.

My son just called for the first time since he left. It was good to talk to him. He is in Texas. He will know soon when he is going to Iraq. He sounds good. He will have his internet hooked up tomorrow, so I will be able to send him e-mail. I am so glad he called.

I have already started watching CMT videos instead of CNN. I am now Tivo-ing the top 20 so that I can watch it whenever I want. I will have to learn what all those channels I pay each month to receive by satellite are! Like Lifetime, or the Weather Channel, or Discovery... I will find out what they are. I have been a one or possibly two channel person for years. It is a sickness with me and CNN. Sometimes I switch to Fox News (especially after handsome Bill Hemmer went there).

Okay. Now I will do my tenth tradition post. My blog is entitled "Anonymous Alcoholic". I think that is really egomaniacal of me, but I did it anyway. Since my blog isn't named Mary Christine's frolics in the sun, and somewhere along the way says "oh, by the way, I am a recovering alcoholic," I don't think I can really say much other than recovery stuff. A lot of folks stumble onto my blog by searching things like "desperate alcoholic," "how do you know you are an alcoholic," "what do I do if my son is an alcoholic," "abandon yourself to God," and an almost all-time favorite "hungry, angry, lonely, tired." I think I have a responsibility to not be terribly offensive, and to make sure that my blog directs a person to AA. If I also say that I am an AA member and I have been sober by the Grace of God since July 24, 1984, that is good. If I say that AA works, and it is a good idea to not drink, go to meetings, read the big book, get a sponsor, and pass it on - that is good. If there is a link to AA on my sidebar, and a link to the big book online, that is good. There are links to other recovering alcoholics' blogs on the side too.

I talk about my life as a recovering alcoholic. It is not terribly exciting. It is mostly fairly wonderful though. I think we share our stories so that people can see that we just keep coming back and don't drink no matter what. Life can be wonderful in the middle of the worst tragedies and heartaches, if you are practicing these principles in all your affairs - to the best of your ability. I hope I never sound like I think I am the epitome of recovery, because that is surely not the case. But I have been living this way for a while and I like to share about it. I mostly hope that my story gives hope to others.

I have taken off links to blogs that frequently go off on political tangents. I am as political as the next guy, in fact, probably more so. But that is not what I am doing here. This is about recovery from alcoholism, a progressive, fatal illness. If I piss off half of the people who come to see my blog, what good is that?

I probably get close to that line with religion, but I never say WHAT religion I am, just that I go to church, etc. It wouldn't take Einstein to figure it out in about 10 seconds, but I try to keep my sharing on it limited to the fact that it is important to me. It Has NOT ONE THING TO DO WITH AA. If anyone had told me I had to go to church when I got sober, I would have run the other way. That was the last thing I wanted to do, I was sober for almost a decade before I went back to church. Thank God you wonderful people in Alcoholics Anonymous didn't make too hard of demands on me. Just these simple things:

Don't Drink.
Go to Meetings.
Get a Sponsor.
Read the Big Book.
Keep Coming Back. It works. It really does.