Sunday, August 13, 2006

Picnic Today

Thanks for the nice comments yesterday. I do feel better. I went to my neighbor's wedding last night and it was very nice. I was seated next to a woman who is a former instructor of mine at the University. She is also a neighbor. I had fun and even danced. When they started playing slow songs I got the heck out of there. Keeping that smile on my face was proving to be a challenge, so I went to an AA meeting instead!

After posting what I posted yesterday and crying for a while, I decided to get a manicure and pedicure. While sitting in the massaging pedicure chair, my phone rang. I answered it for some reason, and it was my former boyfriend, the drunken cowboy. I asked him if I could call him back and he said he wouldn't be available. It didn't take long to realize something was different. He was in Wyoming - at the bus station - waiting for a cab to take him to the VA hospital. Oh Praise God!!!!! He said he had lost everything and was asking for my prayers as he enters an alcohol treatment program. He sounds beat up like I have never heard him sound beat up before. When I met him, he was a resident at the Salvation Army and didn't sound as beat up as he did yesterday. If you have a minute, see this post which gives a brief history of my beloved drunken cowboy. And again, I will ask for your prayers for all of us. I just pray he can get sober and stay sober. He is such a wonderful man, one of the kindest, most loving people I have ever known - and one of the worst drunks I have seen in my life.

During the conversation with him, I think I was only barely aware that I was getting a pedicure! I apologized to the woman, she was sweet and was obviously concerned about what ever was going on. It took me a while to stop the tears. Sheesh. Bad cell phone manners!

Today I get to go to the annual picnic for the Sunrise Serenity Group. It is at a pool, it should be fun. I am really looking forward to spending some quality social time with other sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"You are going to meet these new friends in your own community. Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life." -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 153

10 comments:

dAAve said...

Great post and I hope you have a good time at the pool.
Be grateful (I am) for the example of those who choose to remain into themselves.

jake said...

I am so happy for you......I admire your honesty,it gives me the inspiration to be honest myself....Have fun at the pool..(one piece or two piece?).....D

jake said...

Peace.....

Carly said...

Your cowboy is in my prayers.

Mary Christine said...

One piece. I think it should be illegal for any woman over 50 to be showing abdominal flesh. Yuck.

lash505 said...

I saw a prayer for your cowboy..

Petutes said...

Great post, I just read it now and I pray that the cowboy gets help. I hope you had a good time and good fellowship at your picnic.

Unknown said...

Duly added to prayer list. I ma witnessing a total meltdown by a friends husband. Sad thing is that I am moving in a week and then he really will have an uphill as I am the only male in my group that done has any twelve step work. ANd outside of me there is no AA.

Ginnie said...

I have lived the last 17 years as a sober person, thanks to AA. It still grieves me to see friends and family members who are unable to grasp the program and make it work, but what helps me is to realize that each and every person has a Higher Power, just as I do, and I pray that "your cowboy" will latch on to his this time and make it work. (AA is a simple program but the hardest thing that I ever had to do...it's not for sissies!)

Unknown said...

Picnics and AA social events as a rule seem to be a great place to be when stuff is up. (For me ;)