Day before race day

I'm packing my bags for my trip to Vail today. One of my friends from the running club is meeting me here after her run. She will leave her car and we will head out in mine. We will meet another bunch of us at a mall up in the hills - for some shopping and lunch, and then make our way across the pass to our hotel, race expo, dinner, etc. What fun!

You know, I feel I need to say that I only have my own experience, strength, and hope to share here. I have only my own story. My hope is that my sharing of my own experience, strength, and hope is helpful to you - or someone. But I can't change my story to make it more palatable to anyone.

This post is bringing me down, man. So, I will go paint my toenails blue, to match my running dress, and get ready to get the heck out of here.

Woo Hoo! My 10th (and maybe last?) half marathon tomorrow!

Beauty

There are many beautiful things in this world once you stop drinking like a pig and open your eyes.

Today I talked to a couple of friends who told me such beautiful stories, my eyes welled with tears. My friend from Ethiopia who is happily married to a woman who is "strong," he said, strong like his mother. My friend who told me her elderly mother is afraid of leaving her alone when she dies.

I met my new beau for dinner tonight. We both still had our work clothes on. He looked so handsome. And dinner was so nice. And the few sprinkles of rain in the hot, hot evening were so, dare I say, romantic? as he walked me to my car. Oh, it is a lovely, lovely thing.

Tomorrow I will get up early enough to get to the 6:30 meeting because a friend is speaking and he asked me to come. I am so blessed to have friends who care enough to ask me to attend a meeting where they are speaking.

Life is so so so so good. God's grace has no bounds.

Tiredity

I slept until 6:30 this morning - which is just crazy. I don't even sleep that late on the weekends! I am just bone weary. It has been a long summer and I think I am ready for it to be over. I have a race this weekend, and hopefully that will pep me up a bit. I will be staying in a lovely hotel in a lovely Colorado resort town, and that is going to be nice.

I have had every second of my life scheduled for a while now. I don't do well with that. I really need down time. I should have a few seconds to myself this weekend.

I am also super-frustrated because my phone is not working right. My fella called me last night at 8:30, and the phone did not ring. The sound of a voice mail woke me up at 3:00 a.m. This also happened on Friday night. It is very hard to plan to get together when your phone doesn't work. I went to the AT&T store on Saturday and got a new SIM card, thinking maybe that was the problem. It wasn't. One of my friends called last night and she couldn't hear me - I tried to call her back but wasn't able to get a call through at all.

I think it might be worth the penalty to ditch my contract with AT&T and go back to Verizon - I absolutely never had a problem with them in the 15 years I was with them. But then, fickle me, I decided I HAD to have an iPhone and switched to AT&T - just months before Verizon got iPhones.

Sorry for having no coherent message today. I am tired and frustrated. And you know what? The sponsee who calls me a lot always gets through... so I guess that is good. This morning she left in the middle of a meeting to call me. She was whispering.

I am grateful I can be the sober woman on the other end of the phone when it rings. I am grateful I can be relied upon to be me - every single day of my life. That is a good thing.

A few years ago one of my friends said this to me. "Do you know why I absolutely trust you Mary? - Because you are the same person every single time I see you or talk to you." That was high praise indeed.

The Grace of God is seemingly infinite.

The Distant Past

My paternal grandmother. She was born in 1883. This is a photo of a photo and the clarity is not good. It is still pretty.

I got a letter in the mail from my brother tonight. I hate to admit that when I saw it, I thought "this can't be good news." But it was, kind of. He sent me photocopies of letters he had gotten back in the early 80s from my uncle. My uncle had done extensive work on our family tree. I had never seen these letters and they had a lot of new information - to me. I found his closing in one of the letters very touching, it said "I remember your mother by name at Mass every day, and in my Office and rosary. She was a wonderful woman." Yes, that's MY mother he's speaking of. Oh, and yes, he was a priest. He died in 1984, a few years after writing these letters.

I often think of this uncle in one-dimensional frames. He was intelligent, talented, prolific, brilliant... but I remember him for the things he did wrong. That is his legacy, unfortunately. Well, maybe not... he wrote some books that have been resurrected on Amazon.com. Maybe in time he will be remembered for those books, and not the other stuff. I don't know.

I went back to Ancestry.com with the new information I have. I filled in some blanks.

And being an alcoholic who has spent a lot of time thinking about alcoholism, I am struck by something.

Out of all the relatives, on both sides of the family, it appears there was only one line that was alcoholic. On my mother's side, there are prominent citizens, all the way back to the Revolutionary War! On half of my father's side, there are what appear to be good, solid citizens. Veterans of the Civil War, etc. And then there is my paternal grandfather, who died before I was born, the husband of the woman in the photograph. He was a metallurgist and was quite wealthy before the crash of 1929. His family is all "sketchy." They came from England, but scattered to the ends of the earth. His father died in Australia.

I just think it is odd that for all those solid people, I managed to be somehow genetically attracted to the flakey side. Not that they were all that flakey. They were successful, but in weird ways. All of the other grandparents families lived in the same town for generations... not so with this one line. They were all over the place.

Anyway, it is too late to be writing anything. But I had lunch with my daughter today at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. We splurged and had Vietnamese coffee - and now I am sleepless when I should be sound asleep.

But I am sober. And I will wake tomorrow, no matter how tired, without a hangover. And for that I am eternally grateful. The grace of God is a wonderful thing.

Tuesday a.m.

Did I tell you all that I have a race (half marathon) on Sunday? That it is in a lovely mountain resort town - think Gerald Ford. That it's a girlie race, complete with feather boas, tiaras, and roses? Yes, I am looking forward to this. I am driving up on Saturday and staying in a nice hotel. A bunch of the ladies from the running club are going up, I think we shall have fun.

Do you think some people are just wired to be miserable? I have been working with a woman for maybe 9 months now. She has been sober for more-than-a-few years. She is a very unhappy person. I was terribly depressed for my first quite-a-few years, so I thought I understood. But I am beginning to think I don't. Every thing that I have suggested to her, based on my own experience, has failed to bring her any gratitude or happiness. Not even little glimmers of either. I have gotten so I dread picking up the phone when I see it is her calling. It gets exhausting trying to help her "reframe" things so that she isn't panic stricken, devastated, fearful, and unhappy. We are now meeting once a week and we will get through the twelve steps (not her first time) and I pray it will make a difference in her life.

But it makes me wonder. Even though I have a true case of major depressive disorder, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous enabled me to live happily - most of the time. It is work, because my mind defaults to really unhelpful thinking. But I believe you can train it to get out of that devastating rut. And my own experience is, thanks be to God, that I have been able to do that without the use of medications. I am so grateful for that.

OK, I have got to get out there and do 4 miles before work. What a wonderful thing this is!

Pickles

My daughter and I made pickles yesterday. It took all day and the end product is 32 jars of garlic dill pickles - some pints, some quarts. My house smells like heaven - dill and garlic. Maybe I just think it smells like heaven because it is a smell of times I have loved in my life. I have loved making pickles, year after year after year. I haven't made them now for I don't know how many years. It is so much work! But with my daughter's help, it was OK. They are my son's favorite... we will mail them to him in a week or so.

It's Monday, I need to be at work by 8, but that won't be happening. I decided that getting a few miles in on the treadmill trumped all this morning. So, I will be there at 8:30 instead. Which is OK. I worry about this, but my bosses don't... I have had three bosses in the last couple of years, and I always have to have this conversation about my hours. "I'm always training for a race, and some days I need to do a lot of miles before I come to work... so some days I am here at 7, and some days I am here at 9 . Is that OK with you?" They all assure me that they know I put in a lot of hours. Maybe it is the alcoholic in me that worries that I am slacking - and everyone knows it!

I haven't been a slacker for a very long time now. And when I look back on my years of active alcoholism, I know that was so much more work than actually doing what I am supposed to be doing. Oh all the time spent on excuses, guilt, rationalizing, lying, and remembering all the lies. It is so so so much easier to be sober and live an honest life.

But I guess you don't know that until you know it.

Thank God I know it.

Sunday Morning

Someone brought me flowers again last night :-)

This morning I've been to an AA meeting where I got to see a young family man pick up a chip for 9 months. He told the most beautiful story about his 4 year old son. It was something that will stay with me all day. It was so nice to see someone who is staying sober and seeing his life change. What a beautiful thing.

And my daughter is on her way over. We will spend the day making pickles. She thought my son, her brother, in Iraq, would enjoy some of his mother's homemade pickles. She is right. He will. I am glad she thought of it. And I am glad she wants to do this with her mom.

Life is good. Sobriety is good. God has been so kind to me.

xoxoxox, MC

Saturday Morning

It is the time I am normally getting done with my run and hanging out with my pals. I was looking forward to having the day off, but right now, I miss my normal activity. On the way to the meeting this morning, I saw some friends meeting in the park, in their neon jackets and running shorts, and I felt sad.

It was nice to be at the meeting though. I don't normally get to go to the Saturday morning meeting. I saw some folks I don't see anymore and that was nice. I got to stand outside and talk to a sponsee for a half hour after the meeting and that was also nice.

There were some folks raising their hands at the meeting, as there usually are. I wondered if anyone suggested to them that they not just "keep coming back," but to not drink, ask God for help, get a big book, a sponsor, and get to work. Those things will bring about the psychic change which is necessary if you are to stay sober.

Ah, but what do I know? I am just an old lady sitting in the meeting. Just one sober alcoholic.

Grateful as can be for the Grace of God, because by the Grace of God I get to be sober today. Baking a pie, making iced tea, ironing linens, and getting ready for a wonderful dinner tonight. Oh, it is good.

What a week!

Son of a....

I just hit return and published a post with nothing in it... I have done that before.

This week has been a little bit wild. I have been busy every single minute of every single day. And will have another day just like that today. I am a little bit tired. But I am a lot a bit grateful for a full, sober life.

Since I am no longer training for a marathon, I am now officially tapering for my half-marathon next weekend. It is good when the miles decrease - and I guess that is a good indicator that I am doing the right race. Normally, I would think it is a bad idea for the miles to decrease. I am a bit burnt out on the whole thing right now. Maybe next week's half marathon will re-enthuse me (but I kind of doubt it). But it will be fun - it is in a mountain resort town, and it is an all female race - complete with pink feather boas and tiaras. At the finish, you are presented with a rose and a flute of champagne. I will skip the champagne, and LOVE the rose!

Last night I did one of my favorite activities, only with a new twist. I love to watch TV "together" with someone who is not there. Usually on the phone. But when you are on the phone, you really have to mute the sound and just "watch" and talk. However, last night I watched and listened to the TV and texted comments back and forth with my fella. It was fun.

For now, I am going to the pool to swim a half mile before I go to work. It is good. By the Grace of God, I am a sober, healthy woman who gets to have a full, active life. And that, my friends, is nothing short of miraculous.

"The age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that!" -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 153

The Long View

This photo is from the drive on Sunday - obviously at such a low altitude, we were still under the tree line!

I heard an advertisement yet again on the television this morning. It grates on my nerves a little bit more each time I hear it.

He says: "This is not a twelve-step program. This works."

He says: "I know, I was a drug addict for ten years, and now I'm not."

I did a little bit of research on this joint, and they charge $67,000 + a month for their "cure." They frequently need a person to stay longer than a month. The owner of the place states in an interview that people frequently need to mortgage their houses and max out their credit cards, but then they are "cured." But he also states that 30 days of sobriety is a "cure." Interesting. No follow up, no meetings, no help after you are gone. You're just "cured."

I find it irritating because of the people who need help desperately and don't have $134,000. laying around the house and the ability to leave their lives for a month or two may actually believe that "twelve-step programs" don't work. That they either need to cough up this money or die. And our beautiful fellowship does not argue with them. We avoid controversy. We don't express opinions on outside issues.

So, since I am a member of AA, I shan't argue.

But I shall say:

Twelve-step programs do work.

Twelve-step meetings are full of people who are clean and sober (and 30 days is considered kind of new in our world - not cured).

Twelve-step meetings do not cost anything.

You can still keep your job and family and go to meetings and get the help you need.

Sobriety is good. Having a program and fellowship full of people is something I wouldn't miss for the world.

Thanks to the Grace of God.

Stuff

Who would believe this photo was taken about 40 miles from my suburban home. Weird.

Do you know what I did one day this week? I noticed my high school yearbook sitting on a book shelf. I picked it up and wondered where all those great looking blonde girls with straight teeth went. Thanks to Facebook, I can now find out things like that. I looked up the homecoming queen, the star of the play, the prom queen, etc... and saw that they got old (and some of them fat) just like me! That was probably evil, but in the scheme of things, not too terribly evil. And it was fun.

I still have a cheesecake in the oven, and therefore cannot go to bed. Tomorrow night is my night to bring dinner for my friend undergoing chemo. We all send out e-mails telling each other what we are bringing so that we don't repeat. I failed to do that last month, and I would like to skip it tomorrow. Everyone else is making all of these uber low fat skinny meals. Oh, not me. My friend is skinny as a rail and needs to gain weight. If I cooked for her every day, and she was able to eat it, she would gain weight like crazy. How can I tell them that I made her corn and chicken chowder (with real cream and butter), will purchase a baguette tomorrow, and obviously, the cheesecake is in the oven.

If I was really sick would I want to eat broccoli and brown rice? I don't think so. But I could be wrong. She loved what I made last month, so I will just keep with the comfort foods. I can't think of a time more appropriate for them.

I'm grateful I get to cook for a friend tonight. I am grateful to have a friend because at the end of my drinking, they were in short supply.

To quote my sponsor: "Life is good on the sober side." I think I shall endeavor to stay there, and I hope you all do too.

On Life's Terms

Unless you have ever found yourself at 14,000 feet elevation, I don't think I could describe the air - the glorious, thin, dry, oxygen-free air. It is a giddy feeling - unless you have hiked to get there.

I am just devoid of ideas this morning. It has been a rough couple of days. But I have to remember that these rough days are because I love people and that can never be bad. My son and daughter-in-law are in pain over friends shot down over the skies of a foreign land. Two of my relatives are waking up in hospital beds this morning, post heart procedures done yesterday. They both are reportedly fine.

And then there is the economy. The last time the stock market tanked like this, we ended up closing half of the hospital. At the last Governing Body, the board seemed to suggest that if times got tough, closing the hospital is on the table.

It seems like a million years ago, I walked into that hospital for my job interview. I decided at that time that if I got the job, I would like to stay there until I retired. When I told that to my boss later, she laughed at me. It is now 17 years later, and I still have the same goal. But it may not come to pass.

I just know that I will be OK. With a diminished 401K, and with diminished many things, it is still OK. I am sober and God is in charge.

"Job or no job - wife or no wife - we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence upon God. Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house." -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 98

Driving off the Edge of the World

Yesterday I got to experience a drive on the highest paved road in North America. At over 14,000 ft., it was amazing. I have to tell you, I was terrified. The road is relatively heavily traveled, and it was very dicey when there was a car coming in the other direction - and sometimes a bicyclist on the side (which as you can see, is non-existent) of the road. When we got to the end of the road, we got out of the car and I giggled like a child - before I realized there was very little oxygen in the air. We took photos, and some of them are beautiful. I may post them here this week. But this morning, this photo of driving off the end of the world seemed appropriate.

Today is my son's 35th birthday. I may have been focused on the fact that my kids are now having birthdays that were crises to me at that age. I may have focused on many things prior to yesterday's news. The conversation I had with my daughter-in-law yesterday changed all that, and put things into perspective.

Although the news has told us that helicopter in Afghanistan was full of an elite crew of Navy Seals, there were also other people on that flight - the flight crew - and they are now dead. They were "citizen soldiers" who served along side of my son and daughter-in-law. She lost a friend, and he lost a friend. They are both devastated. My son may be coming home (from Iraq) for his friend's funeral. My son has lost friends in other wars in other places, this is my daughter-in-law's first experience of it.

I remember when my son was born, I would stare into his perfect little face, with his perfect little eyebrows and his perfect long eyelashes, and wonder if he would ever have to go to war. I prayed that by the time he came to manhood, we would somehow get past the need for wars. I am a member of the "vietnam generation," and it never occurred to me that he might actually choose to go to war. But that he did. He left home at 17 to join the Army. By the time he was 20, he was a Veteran of a Foreign War. On his 30th birthday, he was on his way to Iraq. That war changed him. He lost some friends. He got a lot older in one year. But he was relatively unscathed, considering he survived the worst year of that war. Now he is 35, he is in Iraq. His beautiful young wife and baby daughter are here. It just seems to me, in my Pollyanna mind, that he and his wife and baby ought to be together and not mourning the loss of two of their friends. But what do I know?

Today, at this moment, my sister-in-law is undergoing a quadruple bypass surgery. My brother is having a cardiac cath later today. I am praying for both of them. I lit candles at church yesterday.

My heart is heavy this morning.

But I can still place myself in the care of a loving God who has carried me through all of this life... and know that he will lovingly carry me and my loved ones through this time as well.

And I know that a drink is never an answer for me. For an alcoholic, no matter how long sober, this is a miracle. And I am grateful for it.

Sunday

Someone brought me flowers again last night. <3

Today we are heading to a 14,264 foot high mountain. So, maybe this will be my 14er, finally. I never could climb one, although I attempted it twice. I got to around 13,000 feet both times and just had to bag it. Sad. This one has a road all the way to the top, so it is highly likely that I will make it :-)

So, I have a sponsee who is beating herself up without mercy. I talked to her this morning and asked her to please talk about herself like she would talk about someone she loves dearly and doesn't want to hurt. For me, I visualize one of my children. She does not have children, but she loves several of them. This means she cannot say "I am such a mess," "I'm an idiot," I'm stupid," etc. She can say "I am going through a challenging time and I am upset," "I may have made a poor choice," etc. She is going through difficulty, but she is sober - and for an alcoholic to stay sober is a big deal - always. We need to remember this every day. And thank God for it.

I have so many people to pray for today, and although I am sorry for the difficulties that people are facing, I sure am grateful to have so many people to love. My daughter-in-law lost one of her friends in Afghanistan yesterday. She is hurting.

Thank you God I can see outside of the bubble of self today. That truly is by your grace, and not my work.

A rose by any other name...

Is still a rose. And I love me some roses. I have a bunch in bloom again. I picked this one tonight while I was outside taking my laundry off the clothesline. In a few moments, I will put the rose beside the bed, and lay my head down on a clean pillowcase that has dried in the fresh air. There is nothing better. Well, maybe there are a few things better, but this is a pretty good thing.

Tomorrow I shall get up at 3:00 a.m., and drive to meet my running club. I am only doing 10 miles, which sounds like a literal walk in the park. I am looking forward to it. I have done not one mile this week. My foot was swollen from my 19 miler last weekend, plus I have been totally fried on this whole thing. It will be good to get out tomorrow.

I am having a bit of difficulty not getting upset about worldly events. I just had to turn off the news when I heard the latest. I guess I can reiterate the Serenity Prayer and deep down know that no matter what, I will be OK. I always have been. I have been poor before, and it wasn't so bad. Maybe the whole country will be poor, and maybe it will be good for them too. I just wish the politicians who put us in this mess would be getting poor along side us, but they won't. And that kind of rankles.

I don't need to do this tonight. There is a beautiful rose by my bedside, and clean sheets. I am sober, I am healthy, happy, and loved by God and a few of my fellows. It is all good.

"We can believe that God is in His heaven and that He has a purpose for our lives, which will eventually work out as long as we try to live the way we believe He wants us to live. It has been said that we should 'wear the world like a loose garment.' That means that nothing should seriously upset us because we have a deep abiding faith that God will always take care of us. To us that means not to be too upset by the surface wrongness of things, but to feel deeply secure in the fundamental goodness and purpose in the universe." -- Twenty-Four Hours a Day, July 16 Thought for the Day.

Gratitude for Daily Life

I have been thinking a great deal about gratitude lately. Mainly because I have two sponsees in crisis and gratitude seems to be lacking in their lives. I probably could take partial responsibility for that - I guess I should be reminding them every day. But they are both sober over five years and I would expect them to be in the habit of gratitude.

I found my first gratitude list in my old journal from 1984. From my current perspective, it looks like a list of what I thought I should be grateful for. That's OK, it started a habit. I remember a life-changing gratitude list made, at my sponsor's request, when I was sober about two years. My car had just been vandalized, my car stereo stolen. All of my cassettes were stolen as well - with the exception of several Talking Heads tapes. Even the cop agreed that the thief obviously had no taste in music! The sponsor asked me to write a gratitude list. I sat down, really kind of mad at her for suggesting such a thing, and started this list. Here's the gratitude list as I recall it:

coffee

cigarettes

my dining room table

my bath tub

my bath tub is built-in, so no one can steal it

I am so easily entertained.

The last item on that list really changed my perspective on life. Prior to that I hadn't realized I really could be happy with simple things. After that, I focused on the simple things that I enjoyed. Focusing on things really does magnify them - joys or problems.

• Today I do not have a migraine. Praise God. Yesterday I was able to come home and sleep in a cool dark bedroom with a ceiling fan.
• Audible.com - I bought a book to listen to while out on my 19 mile run on Saturday, and I have found that I love listening to books - especially this one, Water for Elephants, which I have managed to avoid because I thought it sounded silly and trite. Listening to a book is a good deal when it hurts to open your eyes.
• I can avoid the temptation to look at my 401K to find out how much money I lost yesterday - because I am sure to lose more today.
• Today is Friday, I have a list of things to do at work today and if I get them done, it will bring a great deal of satisfaction.
• Tomorrow is Saturday and I have so many exciting things to do tomorrow, I could barely sleep last night! I have to remind myself that I can only live one day at a time... but it is nice when I have to remind myself of that because I am too excited about things in days to come!
• God's mercy seems to have no bounds. I have a life today that is a result of His mercy, if I got what I deserved, it would be nothing like this!
• "ctrl i" will make italics, and I seem to like them today.

Have a nice, sober day everyone. If you are not in the habit, try a little bit of gratitude today. It really makes a difference. (And I think God is partial to people who thank Him regularly)

Migraine and Gratitude

Do you know how difficult it is to transcribe those letters when you have a migraine? I commented on a few blogs this morning and had to do the WV over and over again because I could not get it right.

I have always been afraid I would wake up one morning with a slight memory failure. The memory lost would be all my passwords. I would be able to do nothing. I would not be able to use my computer at work. I would not be able to close my garage door. I would not be able to get any money out of the ATM. I would not even be able to pay my bills! In the good old days, I could use the same password for everything and there was no danger of forgetting. But now, we have strong passwords, that must be changed often... and I have to write them down. There are little post-it notes with strange words on them all over my desks at work and at home - and in my daytimer. If I had that mini-stroke, I would not know which notes belonged where.

I have a friend who had a terrible accident years ago. He had a serious brain injury among other serious injuries. After the accident, his wife stood at his bedside, wondering if he would live. She told me that once she thought he would live, she was worried he would not remember that he is an alcoholic. And that he would not remember the blessings of his sobriety, and what he needed to do each day to keep them. But he did not forget. He is still sober. And he is still grateful, every single day. Every single day he proclaims "This is the best day of my life!!!" And he means it.

I think sometimes we think that gratitude is a feeling. But it isn't. It is an exercise. Those gratitude muscles need to be worked, so they get strong and stay strong. And just like exercise, once we are in the habit, we couldn't consider skipping it. I don't want to skip gratitude. No matter what. Can I be grateful for a migraine? probably.

I think today my life's password will be:

gR8fully s0b^r.

Knock, knock, knock - POLICE!

At 12:50 a.m., I heard quiet men's voices very near my bedroom window. I was just starting to wake up and wonder who and what, when I heard the knocking at my next door neighbor's - and then the shout "Police!" I came to my window and heard their exchange with the girl next door... the girl who now lives alone since her parents have abandoned their house. They were looking for her brother, the young man who was last led away in handcuffs on another sleepless night in June. Do you know how hard it is to go back to sleep after being woken like this? They searched the house but didn't find him. Oh, please dear Lord, let these people move away. I have lost more sleep over this young man than all three of my children, from infancy on, put together.

Last night I had a long telephone conversation with one of my sponsees who absolutely astounded me when she casually threw this little line into a sentence - "the longer I stay sober, the worse my life gets." I asked her if she thought it would get better if she had a drink. She said no, but I wonder how it is that a sober person would say such a thing. And, of course, I asked her.

She is dismayed that she isn't making more money. She is dismayed that her husband doesn't make more money. She is dismayed that her lawn is looking bad. She is dismayed that she doesn't always love the people she works with.

This is a woman who was at death's door 6 years ago. She could no longer WALK. I won't go into more details because I don't have the right to, even though you don't know who I am talking about.

I don't even know how to respond to that, except I am glad we weren't eyeball to eyeball, because I might have taken her by the shoulders and shaken her.

Sobriety is not about having a high-paying job. It is not about having a nice house, car, husband/wife, lawn, and stuff. It is about 1. (NUMBER ONE) staying sober - no matter what. 2. Matching calamity with serenity - that means things don't always go our way, but we learn to deal with life's problems. 3. Trusting God, that he will care for us, and may sometimes take us to places we hadn't wanted or expected. 4. Learning to think of others rather than ourselves. 5. Being grateful for our sobriety because we remember what it was to not be sober. (this list is not necessarily in order)

I could go on and on. But I won't.

I think this sage advice works well for us:

Happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have. (Rabbi Hyman Schachtel)

Also:

People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. (Abe Lincoln)

And:

"When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence looked more important than a right dependence upon God, we were still the victims of unreasonable fears. And these were fears which would make a serene and useful existence, at any financial level, quite impossible." -- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 121

I think I am going to make up my mind to be happy today and try to bring what I can to my workplace to make it a better place. God will help me with this, if I ask Him.

IF you are an alcoholic

You may not get a chance to come back and raise your hand. That is just the truth. AA detractors call that hyperbole. OK. I have been to enough funerals to know it is not. You will note that there is a very important caveat there - IF you are alcoholic. Which, unfortunately, I think is only about 50% of the people regularly attending AA meetings.

When I got sober, I was 32 years old and in pretty good health, except for the damage done by excessive drinking - and a world class case of depression. When they said "to drink is to die," I thought that was a bit of an overstatement, because I was not dying. It took me a while to realize I WAS dying. I was seriously suicidal a LOT of the time. I drove a car drunk every single day of my life. I was doing other things that could easily have gotten me killed. My life was very dangerous and I didn't even know it. A good friend told me that alcoholics of our age were probably not in much danger of dying of cirrhosis, but we were in danger of dying from cars, guns, knives, husbands, wives, etc.

Over the years, I have seen alcoholic friends die of cars, guns, knives, husbands, wives, etc. Plus some pretty obscure physical conditions that would likely not have killed a healthy person. This has given me a pretty healthy respect for the disease of alcoholism. And a sincere desire to do what I can to recover, and to help others to recover from alcoholism.

I hear the cute phrase "we don't shoot our wounded" when a person returns from drinking. That's great. I don't think we should shoot our wounded. But, more importantly, don't you think as a fellowship we should do what we can to prevent our fellows from getting wounded? It may feel good to welcome them back so lovingly... but what are we doing to help them from getting into that position in the first place? And what is the message we are carrying? Keep coming back. Great. Then what? There is NO recovery in keeping coming back. It is meaningless.

IF you are alcoholic, you will likely need to do some stuff to stay sober. It is all detailed in the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. A sponsor can help you with it. It WILL keep you sober IF you do it. Not READ it, DO it!

If you are not alcoholic, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can get away with it. You do not have the sword of Damocles hanging over your head like we do. I would ask you to please not "help" real alcoholics though. You do a lot of damage with your watered down program. It does not work for real alcoholics. If someone is telling you that you can customize the program to fit your needs or your beliefs or lack of beliefs, they are lying to you.

Our entire program is summed up nicely in this paragraph on p. 164 of the book of Alcoholics Anonymous:

"Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you -- until then."

The Term "Relapse"

When I lived in Washington, I heard the story of a woman who had been sober for over 30 years. She is now deceased, she died sober. She got sober in the late 50s. Not HER late 50s, but the late 1950s.

She had gone to the same meeting for her entire first year. There were only men at the meeting, but they kindly took her under their wings and treated her just like anyone else who came to the meeting. And she stayed. And got sober. When she was sober for a year, they went "traveling" to a different meeting in another town. (When I lived there we still did that, it was great fun to load everyone up into a couple of cars, vans, SUVs, and head out together.)

When she got to the meeting in the other town, she was terrified by what she heard. They talked about "slips," or drinking again. She had never, in her year of sobriety, heard of such a thing, and it scared her to death! She had gotten the impression that once you got sober, you just stayed sober - no one ever mentioned to her that there was another option. She was scared stiff for a week or so after this meeting, but was able to come to terms with it.

Now we have an entire industry dependent upon alcoholism, addiction, and various and sundry other problems for their daily bread. They have made the term "relapse" more common and acceptable to use when an alcoholic drinks again - I can't speak to the other problems, because I don't have them.

I read the blog of a new guy who is wondering what constitutes a "relapse," is it one drink? Or a full blown binge? Is it a month of drinking day and night? I think it is a reasonable question, but it is unfortunate that the question comes from attending AA meetings. I did a little internet search and learned that "relapse is a part of recovery." Wow. The person who said that obviously (to me) has a financial stake in relapse.

Our original preamble said "the only relief we have to offer is absolute abstinence, the second meaning of AA." Absolute, total, complete. No drinking. If that doesn't appeal to you, you are probably not ready to get sober. If it sounds like heaven on earth, step right up!

Alcoholics Anonymous is for people who want to get sober. They have to make that decision before they get here. We don't convince anyone. Booze does that better than the most eloquent spokesperson. You will note that there is no step that says we wonder if we are alcoholic or if we are really done drinking. That must be done before we start step one. It is the prerequisite.

Let me just state that although many alcoholics do drink again after they come to AA, it is not required. It is entirely possible to come to AA, if you are done drinking, and stay sober, without relapse. Dorothy did it back in 1950-something, and people still do it today. Relapse is NOT part of recovery.

If you want to get sober and stay sober, you can go to meetings where they don't speak of "relapse" as if it were a normal course of events, get a sponsor, and work the steps. Amazingly enough, that all works and people stay sober. Happily sober - because they want to be sober.

I thank God for the divine inspiration of the program. I thank God for the people, the fellowship, of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thank God that I have been set free from the prison of active alcoholism. And set upon a course of recovery. If you are an alcoholic like me, that is a really good deal.