It's been a little bit since I blogged, but I have at least blogged this month, so this is a good thing. There have been a lot of things happening in a very short amount of time, the least of which has been my sobriety. We have our official orders in hand and there are a LOT of things that need to be done to prepare for that. There are so many power of attorney paperwork that you need to have signed and prepared for both him and I, as well as anyone we authorize stateside to do something on our behalf. I won't even get into the details as to passports, health immunizations, medical clearances, etc. It's exhausting, to say the very least.
However; right now I am still attending nightly meetings. I am recognizing more and more faces, now to try to put names with faces. So in order to help me with that, my sponsor decided that she had a job for me to do and that job is to be the greeter and greet every single person that walks in that door as well as just clean up the ashtrays when the meeting is over. I think my sponsor has figured out my kryptonite. I am not so much a people person. I am not personally inclined to walk up to someone and welcome them, however; I know that this process is also about stepping outside of our "comfort zone" and doing things we don't necessarily want to do. Like Step 4....I don't want to do that step. So I am kind of intentionally dragging my feet on that one. I do have names on my list and some days I put more than one name on there, but then some of those names bring up so much rage, hate, resentment and anger that I have to stop and just walk away.
I got to attend my first speaker meeting last night and it was amazing. This man had me laughing so hard at times, but it was serious stuff he was talking about. However; there is one thing he said that stuck with me and I hope it sticks with me for the rest of my life. Alcoholics Anonymous is not about sitting around and talking about all the stupid stuff you did when you were drinking, it's about talking about the things you are doing now that keep you SOBER. As of last night, this man had 17, 089 days of sobriety...and God willing, he will have 17, 090 of sobriety today. This man has been sober longer than I have been ALIVE. Although he had us laughing, he also hit on some points that had some of us shaking our heads in agreement. We've been there. He said something else and I'm going to paraphrase because I can't remember it exactly, but essentially, he said AA is not here to be your higher power, AA is here to HELP OTHERS in their times of crisis with alcohol. We make no judgements, because we can't...we've BEEN that person.
All in all, things are going as well as can be expected. I still have my moments where I tend to go a little crazy, but I just blame that on the German/Irish in me. I also learned something recently and while some may be upset by me saying this, it's not something I say to shame the family. It actually HELPED me to understand why I am having to battle this disease. I learned that my grandpa (my dad's dad) was an alcoholic. He would work through the week and then come Friday, he'd start drinking, drink through the weekend and my heart broke for my dad when he said that the kids would get excited when he drank...because it meant they were going to have food in the house. And it hit me hard. HARD. Sometimes addictions can skip generations, but myself and my brother have battled them and we still battle our demons. I can't say we're lucky, I can just say that God has some kind of plan for us, because if not...him and I both should have been dead a LONG time ago.
I think of the damage that I have caused my family and it hurts me. I would budget for my booze. Put off paying the water bill....I need my liquor. Write a check for groceries, if it hits the bank before we get paid, we've got savings to cover it...I need my booze. Saturday came around and I made damn sure that I was at the liquor store buying enough to get me through Sunday...cause in the worst case scenario, you can only buy wine or beer after noon on Sundays...the liquor stores do not operate on those days. I was not a wine or a beer drinker. If I drank wine, I opened a bottle for me and a separate one for everyone else...and I would drink that entire bottle...then open another. Lord help you if you got in my way of going to the liquor store too...I'd tear your head off and not think twice. As I think back now, it never dawned on me that I had a "frequent buyer" card to one of our liquor stores here, because I was there THAT much. I knew cashiers by names and their families! Yet I couldn't tell you shit about what was going on in my own family.
Now, apparently there was some news show on Nightline this week that had evidence of a study showing that people who have had gastric bypass surgery have a higher tendency of becoming alcoholics somewhere around 3 years + after surgery. Well, looks like I fell in that category. I have gained weight back and probably BECAUSE of my alcohol abuse. Now I have to work twice as hard to get it back off, but I will, becuase my will to live is stronger than my urge to drink.
That's it people. That's all I've got right now.
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