Friday Morning

I have been sick and grumpy all week. Yesterday afternoon I spoke to my boss, we agreed that if I did not feel better today I would not come to work. I do not feel better, therefore, I am not going to work.

I had to pop over to my daughter's house early this morning to borrow her (larger than mine) crock pot. I stopped on my way home to take photos of the sunrise. I think I may have identified the cause of some of my grumpiness as I strolled around the top of the hill that I normally run 3 miles, mostly uphill, to get to. I have walked exactly 4 miles since my marathon on October 17. No running. No fast walking. Only 4 slow walking miles. My group starts back up tomorrow and I doubt I will be with them due to this cold. But I need to be a runner. It is a need, not a want.

To go back to something I vaguely referenced earlier this week, about the study about alcohol. I didn't read the study. I'm not even interested in the study. I was just writing about people in my life and in the blogs suddenly seeming to be taking more caution around alcohol and hearing in the background on CNN in my living room "Alcohol is the most dangerous drug!" I thought it was kind of ironic. Others have told me that the study actually reported that alcohol causes more damage to society as a whole, but other drugs, such as heroin, are more dangerous to individual users. Hmmm. I wonder.

My daughter is an alcoholic and was addicted to meth for many years. Somehow she was in a relationship with a former police officer for a few years. (I will be forever grateful to him because I know he saved her life many times, and he will forever need therapy to get over the damage done to him, I am sorry to him and everyone like him...) I will never forget the day he called me to tell me that she had taken his truck and wrecked it. She crashed the truck into a church, called him and yelled at him, and left the truck, left the scene of the accident, and he hadn't heard from her for a day. He was beside himself with worry about her, etc.

I will never forget what he said to me. He said that for many years he thought that if she just stopped shooting meth she would be OK. But she had stopped using meth and started drinking and he said he actually thought she was better off doing meth. He couldn't believe he was saying this. I could.

I am not trying to extrapolate this into a study, but I did not find his experience surprising. I have seen the effects of alcohol up close and personal for most of my life and it is devastating. I have also experienced the effects of others' drug addiction. I am not a stranger.

Okay. I am sick. But I can go back to bed.

And I just scrolled back up to my photo taken this morning... the color of the sky is unedited. What a gorgeous day.

I think I will stay sober today, thanks be to God.