I need to be out of here in about 15 minutes. I am sitting in my jammies, with old eye makeup under my eyes, hair pointing in every conceivable direction, sipping my first cup of coffee. I am moving s-l-o-w this morning. I had intended to run this morning and then take a bike ride this afternoon, but it looks like the run is not happening.
It is one week before my AA birthday. The days preceding my early birthdays used to be insane. These days I haven't felt that kind of "squirreliness" but I do tend to reflect a bit. I remember that last July of drinking. It was truly awful.
Not for drama. Not for any disasters. I think it just dawned on me that my life was always going to be this way, drinking every single day. Never drawing a sober breath. Being too sick to do anything with my children. Laying on the couch most of the day. Wanting my house dark and quiet, and instead I had three healthy, lively, little children.
My last drunk? I drank all day July 23, 1984 (as I drank every single day all day long), and in the evening when my husband came home from work, we piled the kids in the car and drove to the library. But suddenly, driving up Wadsworth Boulevard in Broomfield, Colorado, I had a thought - I knew I was going to make an ass of myself and my kids by showing up at the library drunk. I asked myself why I didn't take them to the library when I was sober and I had a chilling thought - one which never occurred to me before - because I am NEVER sober. Never.
I had many dramatic moments before this one. Many drunken debacles. Don't get the idea that going to the library drunk was the worst thing I ever did. I don't know why, but I thank God that this, of all things, was my bottom. I called AA the next day, and the rest, as they say, is history. Thank you God!
"We perceive that only though utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built." -- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 21
10 comments:
Oh Mc... I certainly know how it feels to not be able to do things sober, 'cause I never was sober! I too drank all day everyday before I quit this time. I remember thinking that maybe nobody knew I was spiking my coffee with Bailey's or Kahlua...
I will not forget your 23rd birthday, as the 24th is when I went into labout for AAngel(she was born on the 26th- talk about having her own will!!!)
Love you!
MC, so glad that you aren't spending this July drunk but sober and training with a passion for living. It is all about living now. Glad for that.
A picture with your hair going in all directions might come in handy some day. Like on a Thursday, maybe.
Yea! And now you are never drunk. Never!
Thank you for sharing one of your moments...if not THE moment of clarity for you. Isn't that just how it works??? You were not only given that thought clearly...you were able to act on it...that's a miracle I SAY A MIRACLE. :)
Wow one week Eve, MC that is soooo amazing -- and for others such as myself who have not experienced such, WOW!!!!
ANd your make up, well I bet-cha look like a rock star!
thanks for sharing that bit of your bottom with us... (ok, that didnt come out quite right lol) anyhow, it's good to learn more about your story :-)
I really liked reading your story, MC. Congrats on the upcoming birthday. 23 years is hard to imagine for me ...but one day at a time is not.
Thank you for sharing this and your sobriety
indeed
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
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