Sunday Morning

It is a Sunday Morning. It is cloudy, but warm. I have already been to a meeting and then to breakfast with the ladies from the group. It is a nice little group of about 10 of us. I used to decline their invitation almost every Sunday because restaurant breakfasts make me sick - they would say 'just have a cup of coffee,' but that is no fun! Luckily, I have a wonderful sponsee with an eating disorder who a couple of weeks ago suggested I have a bran muffin - and that is working for me!

At the meeting this morning, I just threw in a little tidbit that happened on Friday. I hadn't thought much about it, but as I told it, it made me cry! On Friday, my daughter and I had lunch at Bennigan's. Now, normally I do not go to bars. I don't think of Bennigan's as a bar. But they did seat us at the bar. As we ate, I became intrigued by the action at the bar, particularly 2 martini glasses full of a light brown fluid. The barkeep was squirting chocolate around the edges of the glasses! I asked my daughter "what the hell is THAT?" She asked me, with humor in her voice, "are we going to have to change tables so you aren't looking at the bar?" I laughed and told her I felt like the Angel Clarence in "It's a Wonderful Life" when he goes to a bar for the first time in a couple hundred years and wants a mulled cider.

But then I thought about it, and asked her if she or her brother or sister ever worry that I am going to drink again. My beautiful 28 year old daughter just said "No, we don't even remember you drinking." Imagine that! My father was sober for 10 years and I never lost the fear that he would drink again, and he did.

If all I got out of my sobriety is the fact that my kids never had that fear, it would be quite enough - more than enough. But that is not all I got. I got a life beyond my wildest dreams, too many friends to count, and happiness I never imagined. And my kids don't live in fear - at least not on my behalf!

It really is a Wonderful Life!