Wednesday, September 03, 2008

I found it!

I am meeting with a financial planner today to try to figure out how I am going to retire a few years earlier than I had planned... we shall see.  I spent the evening searching for a file I compiled a few years ago... a financial future file.  I cannot find it, dammit!  I did, however, find the journal from 1984 I have not been able to find for several years.  So, here is what I wrote on July 24, 1984 after returning home from my first AA meeting.
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"Tuesday, July 24, 1984
I went to my first AA meeting.  I was a nervous wreck, but I loved it.  Its so nice to talk to people who understand the way I feel, and want so much to help.  I want to someday be able to help people like that.  So, I feel I can make the first step.  I will admit that I am powerless over alcohol - and that my life has become unmanageable.  I feel at this time that the next three steps are easy.  Until I get to the moral inventory.  that just might be hard.  

I woke up Ken to talk to him, but he's tired and doesn't want to talk.  So, here I am, excited and a nervous wreck, and I know I have to go to bed, but I also know I won't be able to go to sleep.  But I also know I have to get some sleep so that I can take proper care of my chillens tomorrow.  I have to go to a meeting tomorrow.  90 meetings in 90 days is their motto.  I don't know how I'll do it with the kids.  But like Denny said, do it, or lose the kids.  It's hard for me to believe that would happen, but I guess it would, or could, I should say.

I have a feeling this is a new life for me.  A real life.  I just wish I could get Ken in on it with me,  because I also have a feeling it could break up our marriage.  But I shouldn't have that attitude.  I should be a lot more positive.  

So, I'll find a meeting in the daytime tomorrow, and maybe drag the kids with me.  I don't know what else to do.  I'll call Bitsy in the morning and figure out what to do from there.  I'm a nervous wreck about Ken.  I wish I could have talked to him today."
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I am so grateful to have found this.  It is amazing to me how many things I got right from the first day.  I knew it would break up my marriage and it did.  I knew it was a new life for me and it was. I wanted to be able to help people in AA and I have.  

What an amazing journey this has been!



11 comments:

Pammie said...

wow-you sound so much younger don't you?
AND it's still exciting!!!
I think I woke up with a guy named Ken once too !!!
;)

Unknown said...

Wow--what a great thing to find! As an Alanoner, I know how great it has been for me to have my own program so I keep my hands off my loved ones, active or in recovery! I sometimes don't see how far I've come until I look back. Newcomer's are so important to me--because it wouldn't take me very long to be back at square one if I left the little rooms. They help me to be there for them just like someone was there for me. I loved reading your post!

dAAve said...

Everything that's happened, has happened for a reason.
Now it's obvious, eh?

Anonymous said...

An extraordinary hallmark discovery. It makes me think of that wonderful Flannery O'Connor title: The Life You Save My Be Your Own.
Thanks for sharing this --

Love

Mary LA

Lou said...

Hope the planner can help you swing it! Nice post.

Anonymous said...

Wow...Insightful. Kinda like having a time machine. I was a wreck on my first day.

J-Online said...

I'm so glad you found this. If I rmember correctly this is the only journel hiding somewhere! You have grown so much and offer hope to so many. Thank you.

Scott W said...

And you got to use would, could and should in the same sentence.

Glad you and all the others went before to blaze the trail. Thanks.

I don't remember my first meeting, or second. I was in rehab and a wreck!

Anonymous said...

Well, I NEVER woke up with a guy named Ken...

All I got from my first meeting was "Don't drink, and come back next week." Of course in my LOG book, much more is written, but not about the meeting. It's more about how I didn't drink that week BETWEEN meetings. I was a bartender. Some day I'll look up that old book, and report. Thanks.

Trailboss said...

You knew it would break up your marriage but you also knew you had to do it.

Wow.

Syd said...

I know that I've changed in recovery and so has my wife. We are finally converging a bit more in harmony. The old marriage is dead but in its place is something good or better for sure than before.