Funky

Skunk Ape:   a tall, hairy, upright-walking creature that smells like a black-striped funky-smelling creature and it appears to be coming out a little more often.  

I have been in a funk lately. There seem to be so many things I don't like about me and my life right now. Don't worry, I'm not going to list them.  Oh, how I miss the days when just waking up without a hangover seemed like a brand new resurrection every morning.

I think I need a day of indulgence. A day spent reading a book or binge watching Grey's Anatomy and eating potato chips and dip without guilt.  Anybody have any ideas on how to do that? I find myself telling myself all day long, "No, you can't do that, you need to do this." Being told "No" all the time is making me cranky and my inner six year old is throwing a tantrum and refusing to do what she's supposed to be doing anyway. So I'm stuck between not doing what I want and not doing what I need to do, which means I'm not doing anything.

This, too, shall pass.

I just need to move in one direction or another.

Wow! Such words of wisdom today. Hey, sobriety is not always profound. Sometimes it's funky.


I do have one ray of sunshine to pass on. A friend of mine over at Moderation Management has just started a blog, ModeratelySober.  If you're going for moderation instead of permanent abstinence from alcohol, check it out. The author has been successful moderating for a year now, so it can be done.

For some.

Not all.

How do you know if you're one of the Some?

I think the best way to tell is to try moderation under the guidelines and with the support of a group like MM.  This is not without risk. Just like those who choose permanent abstinence from alcohol, MM'ers are not immediately successful and tend to experience the same old waffling and shuffling and falling flat on their faces and rising up again that we all do in this sobriety game. That can be dangerous for those who are physically addicted to booze, like I was.

But, as stated above, the back and forth, and careening into trees happens when people head directly toward permanent abstinence without passing through Moderationville, too. I view my year attempting moderation as that same erratic time in early sobriety that is testified to by many bloggers who are pursuing abstinence.  A time of questioning of whether I really needed to stop.  I guess, for me, it seemed that if I had a guidebook in hand and a bunch of people telling me which way to go instead of just wondering around in the forest on my own, and I still couldn't find my way out of that f'ing forest, I needed to quit going in there before something large and hairy ate me.

The more insidious danger, of  attempting moderation for those that will not succeed, The Not All Gang, is getting trapped in that forest and thinking that because they've managed to survive and not get eaten by a big hairy sharp toothed creature, we should stay in the f'ing forest and keep trying.  Sometimes harm reduction keeps us from getting to the increase in good that is waiting for us outside of the forest in the sunlit meadow. We survive, but we don't thrive.

Oh yeah, the sunlit meadow. That's where I am.

Thank You, for reminding me.

P.S. Successful moderate drinkers can reach the sunlit meadow, too. The author of ModeratelySober is here.  But if you've been stuck in that f'ing forest so long that you're starting to grow moss in your fecund dewy parts, put down the drink and come enjoy the sun for awhile.

Four Years Of Breathtaking Normalcy

I am one of those dumbasses who waited until alcohol had painted such a bleak picture that normal life took on the shimmer and light of a Thomas Kinkade painting, so full of effusive light spilling out of windows and glistening every day life that it made my chest ache with longing.  I wanted that so bad but I thought it was a fairy tale.

And it was.

Real life doesn't glisten.  There aren't mittened skaters holding hands and doing loop-de-loops out on frozen ponds around every corner in the winter. Sometimes winter is just cold and bitter. Summer days can be endless and sweaty.  And those rose smothered thatch roofed cottages that Kinkade paints so well would have to have wasps' nests under the eaves. And I'm still lazier and rounder in the middle than I want to be.

Welcome to Sobriety, the Normal Life edition.

The other day I drove to Colorado Springs to look at a dog. (Yes, I'm getting the itch.)  I headed home dogless but on the way back I spotted a side road that lead along a stream.  It's fall here and the colors are starting to change and the light is so amazingly clear...so I took the road.  I drove for about twenty minutes along this sparkling stream and it hit me, I had become so accustomed to this, this freedom, that I've come to think of  it as normal.  Nothing special.  Run of the mill.

I had to remind myself that four years ago, the thought of driving into town for groceries almost sent me into a panic attack.  I would have probably had to have had a couple of glasses or more of wine before I had calmed or revived myself enough to go.

Talk about bleak..

Now, here I was driving along a back road without a speck of panic in my veins, without the constant weariness I had come to think of as normal, without the itch to get home or reach for the bottle under the seat. Instead the window was rolled down, the radio was blasting and I was at ease. I had all the time in the world.

It took my breath away.

Yesterday, the cap'n and I donned waders and got out in our stream above to toss around boulders to build the cascade you see upriver.  For a little while we forgot we were old and any slip on the slippery riverbed could result in fractures of very necessary bones and we splashed and stomped and whooped it up and grabbed onto each other to keep from falling.

Until we were breathless.

Then we sat back and admired our work and the music the water made as it tumbled over the rocks.

Last night we lit a fire in the fire pit and watched the flames dance and the sparks erupt while the stars peeked down from above.  There were no bleak thoughts or worries that the morning would demand payment, except for aching backs and shoulders from all that boulder tossing.

Kind of sounds like a fairy tale doesn't it?

But it isn't.

It's just normal life. The Sober Edition.

P.S. You know I actually started out writing this post with the intention of passing on the news that sober life isn't all glitter and gold, but that normal has it's own reward.  As is usual, my Co-Writer had other ideas and I guess he took this opportunity to remind me to take more notice.

Sobriety does glisten.

Hey you, up there, thanks for reminding me.

P.P.S. One of my friends on the MM forum reminded me that Thomas Kinkade died of acute alcohol and valium intoxication.  As I read more about his death at 54 I found out he had apparently had been arrested and served ten days in jail on a DUI charge eighteen months before his death. Two months before his death, he was found unconscious and spent days in a coma and was told if he didn't get help, he would die.
There but for the Grace of God...

Hey you, up there, thanks again.

Quiet

View from my porch yesterday, May 15, 2015

There is a quiet up here after it snows.  Interrupted only by the occasional squabble of the birds at the feeder, a scolding from the squirrel  My knitting needles clicking.  The fire crackling.  The slide of snow off the roof.

The footprints in the snow are mine, coming and going to bring in wood or feed the birds. The other prints are from the other creatures that belong here.

This is what sobriety looks like to me.  Quiet. Unsullied by unnecessary trodding and stomping around.  Unbroken by relentless unnecessary babble.

Only me and the creatures that belong here.

What If There Was No Such Thing As An Alcoholic?

Hey, do you know this guy?  I do, he's the guy I used as my yardstick to gauge whether or not I was an alcoholic.  Okay, maybe not this guy, but I definitely had an image in my head of what I thought an alcoholic looked like.  The blowsy bar fly with smeared red lip stick and blinking reindeer sweater lined up at the VFW potluck on Christmas Day because none of her kids invited her to their houses, her red solo cup of beer and smoldering cigarette waiting for her at the bar.

Yep, that was my vision of an alcoholic.  She gave me great comfort.  I wasn't her. And just as long as I didn't become her, I could happily keep on drinking.  Right?

Nope.  I was miserable.  And I knew the cause.  But as long as I wasn't an alcoholic, I didn't have to quit.

What if there was no such thing as an alcoholic?  What if that word had never been coined?

What would we have to defend our drinking against?  What excuse would we have to keep pursuing so fervently an activity that makes us unhappy?

If we could no longer console ourselves with the fact that we're not alcoholics, what excuse would we have to keep drinking ourselves miserable?

If I hadn't spent all those years assuring myself I wasn't an alcoholic, would I have just quit drinking just because it was making me miserable?

I think maybe it would be a good idea to abolish that word from our vocabulary.  Although I wear it these days as a badge of courage, I'd surrender it if it meant  people would quit using the excuse that they're not one, so they can keep on making themselves miserable.

A Survivor's Story

I remember my parents pulling up to the drive-through window of this state line bar, it was the last day of our vacation and we were on that endless drive home, forty miles left to go.  They bought a six pack and then sat in the parking lot drinking beer and smoking cigarettes while we whined in the backseat about the heat, the drive, the smoke, our siblings' encroachment on our space.  They drank two beers each and then they started the car and drove the remaining bone weary miles home.  It was the 70's and our parents remained doggedly uninterested about the effects of  drinking and driving and second-hand smoke. 

I always wondered about the why of those beers in that hot dusty parking lot. Why didn't they just keep driving and wait until they were in the swamp cooler comfort of our own home?  My best guess is that my parents were bidding a last sad farewell to the carefree, careless days of vacation, or maybe they were drowning their sorrows of leaving the cool, verdant mountains for the vast stretch of nothingness in which we lived.  They needed that one last taste of sky blue waters.

I rarely remember my parents going to a bar or beer joint in our hometown, there were the random and sparse evenings out with friends and maybe an occasional Friday night at the VFW, but, by no means, would Mom and Dad be considered regulars at any of the local watering holes.

But vacations were different.  Every day when the heat descended and the fish quit biting the Hickey clan loaded into "Old Blue", our station wagon, and headed to town where Mom and Dad would settle into a duct tape scarred vinyl booth at a local beer joint and us kids would hit the nearest general stores with our sweaty, stink bait scented dollar bills burning holes in our jean shorts.

Eventually, money spent, we slunk back into the beer joint and threw ourselves, one by one, into the booth and commenced pouting the appropriate amount of time required to drive our parents to the desperation of throwing coins at us for the pool table or pinball machine.  They gladly paid the ransom for just a few more minutes of dark, smoky respite from the endless tangle of kids and fishing lines that defined our family vacations.

Scarred floors.  Barmaids with terrifying hairdos and sassy mouths.  Sitting at the bar with my ice cold bottle of Dr. Pepper.  Spinning bar stools. A painted lady on the floor at Joe's Place in Cimmaron, New Mexico.  A creepy  two-headed calf with beady wall-eye stares in some nameless bar in Red River.

My parents kicked back in a booth, laughing over cold beers and a smoldering ashtray.  My mom with a bandanna in her hair and rolled up jeans.  So young.

I treasure those memories, they are as much a part of me as blonde hair, green eyes and my inbred, deservingly under appreciated, Hickey sardonic drollness.

I miss those places.  I can't but help miss them.

 But miss them is all I can do.

When I rolled by that bar on my own last stretch of vacation a few days ago, I felt a rueful melancholy smile lift the corner of my mouth.  I had a kid stretched out in my backseat asleep, my grandchild, and I would no more think of pulling into that parking lot and drinking beers than driving on home...not lately, any way.

I drove those remaining empty miles to my hometown to drop the grandkid off and to spend the night with my oldest son.  Later that afternoon I headed to Walmart to restock my supply of Diet Pepsi.  As I was pulling two liters off the shelf by the gross, an older woman turned her cart into the aisle.  We glanced at each other and then took longer looks.

"Mary Kay, isn't it?" she asked.

For my whole life I have been running into this woman and she always calls me by my "baby" name and she always says the same thing.

"I remember when we lived across the street from your parents.  Your mom and I were both pregnant with you girls.  Such good times."

I nodded.  I've heard it so many times before but I never tire of hearing it.  We exchanged the usual.
"Where is ?"
"How is ?"
"Can you believe how this town has changed? And not for the better."

Skirting, skirting, skirting.

Finally,

"We lost Jolene, you know?" she asks.

I nod.  I did know.

"She drank a lot."

I nod again.

"I did too.  For a long time," I say.  It is the only meager comfort I can offer, my clumsy attempt to tell her she wasn't the only mother who lost a daughter. It wasn't her fault.

She patted me on the shoulder.

"It happens."

Good-bye Sweet William

My best friend from high school died a week ago, I hadn't talked to him since our tenth high school reunion, and I hadn't talked to him for the ten years before that.  So all in all, I went 26 years without talking to my best friend.  I tried to remember why.  I couldn't remember any big fights or falling out, try as hard as I could.

Then I remembered.  He called one day and I didn't return his call.  A week later, he called again and I didn't return his call.  No big reason, I was eighteen, suddenly pregnant, suddenly married, trying my damnedest to stick in my first year of nursing school.

Then a month went by and I thought, I should call William, but he's going to be so pissed off at me.

Then a year went by and I thought, I should call him, but what can I say?

Then ten years went by and he walked into our tenth year reunion and it was as if no time at all had passed, as if I'd returned all of those phone calls.  And we made the usual promises to stay in touch, and we did.  For that whole weekend.

In recent years I had this fantasy of walking into his liquor store in Wichita, Kansas, yes he owned a liquor store, ironic, huh?  Anyway, I had this thought that some day I would walk into his liquor store and it would take a minute but then he'd look up from the register and that look of recognition would flash in his eyes and he'd jump over the counter and he'd hug me and we'd hop in his old '58 Chevy that we used to drag main in and we'd head to the Taco Tico for his nightly bean burrito that he ate every night of our junior high and high school lives.

I'll never get to do that now, I should have done it when I dreamed it up.  I tried.  I was actually in Wichita a couple of years ago and I actually drove around looking for his liquor store (this was after I quit drinking so I wasn't looking for a bottle) but I didn't even know the name of his store or where it was located.  I guess I thought fate would somehow steer my car toward a storefront that had "William's Liquor Store" etched in the front window.  Of course, I never found it.

Yes, I could have called him, but what would I say?

I have a terrible history of walking away from or letting go of people when my focus changes.  I hate that about me, I view it as one of my biggest flaws.  One that I need to make more strides in overcoming, as my recent two month disappearance from this blog demonstrates.

I know now what I would say to William.  I would say,

"I'm sorry I haven't been there for you all of these years, I'm sorry I never got to know the man you became.  The fact that life keeps trying to convince me that I have more urgent, more pressing issues to take care of is no excuse.  There is no more pressing issue, no more urgent "thing" in need of my attentions more important than a friend who supported and loved me through the most trying of times. I will do better."

"I promise."

P.S.  I'm sorry for the "Sweet William" title, I know you hate that.

Word!

Resolve: firmness of purpose or intent; determination.

 to convert or transform by any process

Music. to progress from a dissonance to a consonance.

 I've had my word for 2014, resolve, picked out since way before New Year's.  I guess you can see how much resolve I've had for writing about it, I still struggle with whether I have enough left to say on this blog.  But then today I was visiting the mmabsers message board and a friend of mine there had copied and pasted an old post of mine from early 2011, All Out War when I was still struggling and I didn't think I was strong enough, or smart enough or anything enough to win the war.  She said, and other members chimed in, that it was an inspiration to them to see where I'd been and where I am now.  

Well, golly, I guess I better keep writing.

  

I've had this post planned out for weeks, I was going to explain how having resolve or employing resolve was different than just making a  resolution, how I wasn't going to get bogged down in goals and accomplishments.  I just wanted to have more resolve, dammnit!

Then I went to look up the definition of  resolve, yep, those first two are exactly what I wanted, then I got hung up on the third one, the one that defines  resolve as a musical term that means the transition of dissonance to consonance.  Wouldn't it be great if I could find a song that sounded exactly like what I wanted my whole year to look like?  Something with just a little dissonance and long periods of consonance, or something that started out with a short prelude of dissonance and then segued into a long ballad of consonance.

I have spent, I'm not kidding you, six freaking hours looking for that song.  I started out with the Stones and the Beatles and ended up with Sebelius Symphony #7.  I don't know why I didn't think of it right off the bat. 

Not!

I'll admit it, I googled the "best example of resolution of dissonance."

  

Is it what I was looking for? No.

It's perfect.

It is a symphony of life.  It has dissonance through out the whole freakin' twenty-five minutes.  But with the flick of a wrist, a single breath,  a slide of bow across string, the harshness transforms to deep beauty,  strife builds to glorious triumph, and the deepest sorrows give way to frivolity and carefree joy.

I'm still listening and I don't know how it will end, but it doesn't matter.  A baby will cry, a leaf will turn,  a star will fall and it will all start over again.

Such is life.

Such is life.

Happy Belated New Year, Amigos! 

2013 Tribute to You

 

My fellow MM member, Heidi, shared this beautiful blog written by Jen Louden on the Moderation Management message board today and it reminded me so much of all of you in this wonderful, giving, tenacious, sober blogger, message board, chatroom, AA meeting, rehab... world of ours.

Thank you for holding my hand and not letting go.

A 2013 Tribute to You

I see all the times you followed your desires, without guilt or second-guessing or demanding a particular outcome. Even if only for a few breaths.

I see all the times you stopped hurrying, played in the field of creative joy, took a nap, flowered with self-kindness.

I see the kisses you savored, the connections you took in, the evanescent beauty of life you let break you open.

I see the days you started with reverence and ended with gratitude.

I see the times you nodded briskly at your fears, said “I hear you; we’ll talk later” and turned away to pick up the pen, the paintbrush, the business plan.

I see all the times you bit your tongue when you wanted to say something cruel, all the times you took a deep, slow breath and found your heart instead of your anger.

I see all the times you softened your heart, forgave yourself, forgave someone else, dropped the grudge, the blame, your defenses.

I see all the times you turned away from comparison and envy at the curated lives parading on the screens that surround you, turned off the din and settled back into your sovereignty.

And all the ways you have allowed life to temper you, faced your shadow with tenderness, dared vulnerability, loved greatly.

The times you dug deep to serve – from the money given when the month was tight to the petition signed to the soup made. Yes, I see that. And yes, it was enough.

Please imagine us in a circle that stretches – literally – around the globe. We join hands. We do not sing “Kumbaya.” We do, however, look to the right and then to the left. We nod at each other. Maybe we tear up a little. We are, after all, fiercely awesome.

We bow to each person’s fierce desire to be whole and to heal the whole.

We are ennobled by each other.

Thank you, we whisper, thank you.

Voids

Sorry for my disappearance.  I'm back in Mexico and, as usual, that takes some adjustment for me.  I can no longer hide out in my backwoods mountain cabin and avoid the drunken crowds.  They surround me.  Everywhere.  I have probably come the closest to drinking again in the last three weeks than I ever have in my sobriety.  And once again, it would have been to punish someone or to get them to change their ways, not because "I" wanted a drink.

Which is just fucked up thinking and the last time I drank to try to change someone else I almost killed myself and it still didn't work

But things are different now than they were almost 2.5 years ago when I did that.  Back then I wasn't strong enough to escape, at least I didn't think I was.  But now I am and I know it and while I may have felt so unhappy in the last few weeks to think about drinking again, I knew I wouldn't.  I knew I was stronger than that.

That being said, I was miserable and I don't function well when I'm miserable, in fact, I don't function at all which explains the void in this blog.  It gets very tiring doing this on my own and since you guys know I'm always looking for signs, I'll tell you about one that keeps hitting me over my head.
As my friend, cp, says, "Ding Dong."

Sign 1:  I picked up one of my fellow elves to go do some Christmas shopping for the ninos a couple of weeks ago.  She hadn't been in the car five minutes when she said, "Hey, Christine ________ told me to tell you to contact her.  She says if you want to go to an AA meeting or need someone to talk to to call her.

See what happens when you tell the whole world you're an alcoholic?  I had no idea that Christine was an AA'er.  In fact, I thought she was a drinker because I see her at all the same functions I go to, which involve drinking.

Sign 2:  I was at another fundraiser, because when you hold fundraisers for your own cause you are then obligated to go to every fundraiser under the sun, whether it be for the street dogs, computers for the school, or knitting ponchos for cats.  A man I know and I started talking, he has been sober for six years and I already knew this.  He said, "You and I should go to an AA meeting in Merida, it would be a hoot!"

An AA meeting a "hoot"?

Signs 3:  The cap'n and I were driving back from our little project house in Dzilam de Bravo one day and there were signs everywhere.  No, I didn't see the AA triangle in amorphous cloud formations, or spelled out in fallen, decaying palm fronds, instead I saw it painted in peeling paint on the sides of crumbling buildings in almost village we passed through.

I have driven through these villages dozen of times and never noticed an AA sign.

On another day, a group of us went to the fair on the outskirts of Merida  and as I looked over to the side of the road, there was a compound of white building and at the gate stood a bust of a man, carved in the concrete below, "Dr. Bob" and the AA symbol.

Am I looking for signs pointing me towards AA or are they just appearing?  I don't know.  I don't think I'm ready yet but I have a feeling, some day soon, I will be.

Tomorrow: Whaddaya Gonna Do About It?

We must always look to the future. Tomorrow - the time that gives a man just one more chance - is one of the many things that I feel are wonderful in life. So's a good horse under you. Or the only campfire for miles around. Or a quiet night and a nice soft hunk of ground to sleep on. A mother meeting her first-born. The sound of a kid calling you dad for the first time. There's a lot of things great about life. But I think tomorrow is the most important thing. Comes in to us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.  ---John Wayne

That's the Big Man talking up there.  God, my dad loved him.  He's right you know, every day we have a new chance.  What are we going to do with this brand spankin' new day?  How many more tomorrows are we going to waste?

A lone campfire for miles is a wonderful thing, he's right about that, too.  It's snowing up here today and I've got a fire going and I hope it doesn't let up for days.  I hope I don't see anyone for days.  Used to be, I'd drink those days away, but now I think I'll just savor the quiet and calm and beauty.

Of course, we're never really alone these days, with our cell phones and internet.  I came out of the closet about this blog the other day when I put a link to that article I wrote for sober nation on my "real" facebook page.  It was scary.  I'd already "come out" on fb on my two year soberversary, but my blog was my one piece of anonymity I was holding on to.  No more.

There was a major influx of hits on this blog the day the article was published and there was a flurry of well wishes and pats on the back on my facebook page but all of that has already died down.  That's ok. 

That's not why I wrote the article. 

A couple of people commented on my fb post that the article resonated with them, there were a couple of pm's from people asking that I pray for them, and I've gained a couple of more followers to my blog.

That's why I wrote the article.  In the hope that just one more person would gain the courage to reach out and realize they didn't have to do it on their own.

There's a whole bunch of campfires out there.   Welcome.

Damn, the sun just came out.

Messengers

The first time I met her, she had just wrested the spatula out of the hands of one of my fellow elves who was turning out sub-standard pancakes at our Christmas Toy Drive's First (and last) Annual Pancake Breakfast fundraiser. I saw her giving the pale runny discs on my griddle the evil eye.

I soon found myself out of the kitchen and waiting tables.

Message received.

This was on one of my rare good days when I was neither hung-over or drunk.

The next time I met her was during one of our toy drive's bingo nights and I was drunk and in charge of making change for the players.  A drunk gringo trying to make change in pesos is not a good combination.  Once again, I felt her hawk eyes on me and I was soon relieved of my responsibilities.

Again, message received.

The next fall, when I was  back in the states, I received a message about her from a fellow elf.  She'd had a terrible fall and was in the hospital.  And, "Oh by the way, you know she is an alcoholic, don't you?"

No, I didn't.

This was about two months into my "recovery" so I sent her a message.  I said:

"I am like you.  I am an alcoholic."

I didn't know how my message would be received.

She replied:

"I am a binge drinker.  I was once sober for 6 years and then one day I had a bad day at work and I decided to have a drink.  I've never been able to get back for long."

We met up when I returned to Mexico.  I was a newborn in my recovery, all enthusiastic and shooting rainbows out my ass.  She was fresh out of the hospital, barely able to walk, sparse gray hairs sprouting from the wounds on her scalp.  Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, their depths dark and bottomless.  We both swore we'd learned our lessons, we'd never drink again.  I looked for the spark I felt in those blackhole eyes and couldn't find even a glimmer.

The message was drowning in those fathomless depths.

But we kept meeting, she gave me her 90 Day AA chip and I promised to give it back to her when she reached 90 again.  Slowly she got stronger, slowly I saw the fire return to her eyes.  Once again she brooked no argument.

Message retrieved.

But then the messages fell off, my phone calls went unanswered.  When I did manage to catch up with her, she was wearing an outfit I recognized.  She had wrapped that cloak back over her shoulders, the one that we alcoholics think others can't see through.  A cape made of the shoddy material of flimsy excuses and threadbare lies.

Last year we sent a few emails back and forth, a few telephone calls promising to get together, but we never did.  But I heard from a few people that ran into her that she looked great, better than ever, smiling more than they'd ever seen her.  There were rumors of a man in her life.


This summer I saw a message on fb from her daughter that her mother had returned to the states and that all of her things, including her beloved sewing machine were for sale.

I wondered if I should send a message, but I didn't.

Last night I received a personal message from her daughter, her mother has stage 4 colon cancer and had a stroke last night.  Would I pray for her?

I sent a message back.  Would she please tell her mother that I remember what she said?  That I still carry her message with me.  That she is still helping me.  The message?

"I was sober once for 6 years, then I took a drink and I have never been able to get back."

Message passed.

I've often asked my Co-Writer why he put her in my life if we couldn't save each other.  I now know why, she is a messenger.

Please pray for my messenger.

Mountains

Last night my brother, sister-in-law,  nephew and I were returning from the cancelled fireworks show in our little mountain town.  The windshield wipers were slapping at the rain and my sister-in-law and I were singing along to "Chapel of Love" on the radio as we turned onto the "bumpety" washboard road up to our cabin.  It was full dark but you could see the hulk of the dark mountains in the night cloud mist.

I thought of those settlers that had lived in the group of log cabins up the road from our place more than one hundred years ago.  I thought of how those mountains had stopped them in their tracks and kept them from getting to where they wanted to go.  The promised land of California or Oregon or Washington, where the soil wasn't stingy and full of boulders, where the winters didn't last most of the year, where people could hang onto the promise of spring.  I thought of how even in the dark, you can feel those mountains looming over you, threatening at any moment to crush you, both physically and spiritually.

And I thought, I can't believe I'm singing along aloud to the radio with other people listening and I haven't been drinking.  And I can't believe that I my brother and sister-in-law brought my nephew back to see me after their last visit.  The visit that spurred this blog and my recovery, you can read about that catastrophe here in my very first blog Forgive Unto Thyself .

To give you a short synopsis, that visit started with me giddily drunk and playing ballerina across the stream, breaking my toe while trying to rescue an escaped flip-flop.  Somewhere in the middle of the visit my sister-in-law threatened to hide my bottle from me, I just smiled woozily at her and then promptly puked up the dinner she had just fixed as she sat beside me on the couch (nice, huh?).  The last three days of the visit I was in withdrawal and couldn't get myself out of my bed in the loft of our cabin while they tip-toed down below.  Did I mention that my six year old grandson was also visiting?

Suffice it to say, that I wouldn't have blamed them if they never came back.  But they did come back. Because, since that last visit I have climbed me some mountains and I've moved or torn down the ones that were standing in my way. 

 Mountains don't scare me anymore. I am no longer trapped in the dark, waiting for that crushing blow to come. 

I know how to climb.

Frageelay!

In case you didn't notice, there was a new moon last night.  You probably didn't, I didn't until I went for my walk on the beach this morning and there was a lot more beach.  I don't keep track of tides anymore since I moved off the boat, I think I have a block or something about those years on the boat, the ones I remember anyway.  Those years on that boat accelerated and cemented my alcoholism, and the fact that the cap'n and I received an estimate yesterday that it was going to cost us another $25,000 dollars to get it marketable, again, is not making me any fonder of it.

But that is neither here nor there.

Back to the beach.

In addition to having a new moon low tide which gave me more beach to traverse, a norte' blew in last night which usually means great shells.  Now I swear I'm not a shell seeker, like the boat, it is another thing I'm done with.  I mean you can only do so much with seashells and when we bought this house it came with its own collection of bottles, and jars and bowls, and buckets full of shells because the previous owner couldn't think of anything else to do with them either. Plus I have a few Jack Daniels 1.75  bottles full of tiny shells that I rescued off the boat that are now residing in a storage shed in Colorado.

Convinced yet?  

Ok, one more.

Enough shells already, agreed? 

 Except... I'm still on a quest for one of those big honking shells about a meter long that my friends have and swear they've found on the same beach or that some fisherman has gifted them with one after he's become enamored with their stooped early morning  figures and ample derriers as they poke among the rocks.

So I set off in search of my own today.

I didn't find one.

But I did find something that I've found a few times on the various beaches I've combed and it never ceases to amaze me.

An unbroken light bulb.

Laying on the beach where a wave has tossed it, past the reefs and the ankle snapping rocky shore, as if a careful, steady hand has placed it there.

Safe at last.

My friends, that light bulb is you and me.  We've ridden the tumultuous wave and balanced precariously on its crest only to be pulled under and deluged time and again.  Rising and falling. Rising and falling.  Finally we've been cast onto the beach, crashing against the razor sharp reefs and jagged rocks, tumbling to rest on the soft sand.

Unbroken.

But we can never forget how fragile we are.  Please stay safe, don't get too close, don't let the tides suck you back out into the maelstrom.

The next wave might shatter you.

Mary, Full Of Grace

This is my Mary here in the Yucatan.

The title above is kind of a half-truth.  I am Mary (Come on, surely by now you've figured out that my real name is Mary), but I'm still working on the full of grace part.

I removed my previous "negative ad" but I want to thank all of you for your very caring and concerned comments.  It means a lot.  I want to assure everyone that I have had no urge to drink, if anything the exact opposite, witnessing the effects of alcohol on others and seeing a person you love transform on a daily basis into someone that you cannot tolerate, does a pretty convincing job of proving to me that booze is the last thing I want these days.  

 I'm grateful for that.

It seems for the last two weeks all I've been able to concentrate on, waste my energy on, sacrifice my joy for is the one negative aspect of my life right now.  I need to shift my focus to those things that are good in my life. 

There are so many.

I've noticed that a lot of people are doing the daily gratitude thing for the month of November and I think I need to catch up.  Today is November 8 so here are 8 things I am grateful for.

1.  I am grateful for my sobriety, which is like a new gift I get to open every morning and which          without I would be having a hard time coming up with 8 things to be grateful for this afternoon and not a single one of them would be possible, they'd still be desperate prayers.

2.  I am grateful for a husband who if I turned to him right now and said, "I think I'd like to become an astronaut" he'd say, "Go for it.  You can do it.  What do you need from me?"

3.  I am grateful for a phone call from my youngest son who says he can't wait to see me at Christmas.  He misses me.  

4.  I am grateful that once again people have confidence in me, and more importantly, that I have confidence in myself.

5.  I am grateful for friends and family that have loved me through my lost years and still love me.

6.  I am grateful that once again I have something to give others that is valuable and that I am proud of.  Myself.

7.  I am grateful for my parents that gave me a strong faith in God and love, I wouldn't have made it through without it or them.

8.  I am grateful for those that went before me, those that walk along side me, and those that follow me on this tortuous journey, you keep me on the path.

Love you guys,

A very Grateful, but not entirely graceful, Kary/Mary

Winning!

Yesterday I went to buy lottery tickets, the cap'n and I argued back and forth about it being a waste of money but you can't win if you don't play and somebody has to win and this is the last time we'll have a chance to win since we're heading to Mexico on Tuesday.

So we decided to try our luck one more time, but we decided to cutback on our wager a little and only spend $20.00, $10.00 for Lotto and $10.00 for Powerball, instead of the $30.00 we'd been spending since the price of Powerball doubled. 

First, I had to cash in our winning ticket from Wednesday night. $4.00 Woo-Hoo!  And then I told the cashier I wanted 10 on Lotto and 10 on Powerball.  Well, the girl heard 10 "of" Powerball and gave me $20 worth of numbers.  Of course, this is a sign and if I correct the girl and tell her to redo the numbers, she'll keep these numbers or dig them out of the trash later and they'll be the winning numbers and she'll be able to quit her job and spend her days buying things off of QVC, instead of me.

If I keep the tickets, I'll still lose but she won't win.  So I kept the tickets.

Today I was filling up my bathtub, I'm loading up on baths because I don't get to take them in Mexico.  I have a bathtub down there which is about the size of the city kiddy pool I used to go to when I was little but I only have a 5 gallon hot water heater.  What's up with that?  Mexicans aren't real big on hot water.  I'm not sure they even sell 40 or 50 gallon water heaters down there.  Just like belle was talking about in her blog today on Tired of Thinking About Drinking, when you live in a foreign place you start thinking of ways to make it "better" which usually means you're trying to make it just like the place you just "escaped from."  If I were to open a little gringo emporium down in Mexico, I would stock it with 50 gallon water heaters, crunchy taco shells and Yankee Candles.

Once more I have wandered off and stalwartly (I need to look this word up, it could mean to go about without personal regard for pungent toe fungus or mutant belly button hairs, for all I know.) ignored any rules of punctuation.

Ahem.  Today I was filling up my bathtub and adding my watery, cheap bubble bath and I thought, "If I win the lottery I'm going to buy me some really nice bubble bath, no more Suave or Western Family (that's our local store brand), I'm going to really splurge and buy Calgon.

Then I let my lofty dreams really "take me away."

If I win the lottery I'll build a big Frank Loyd Wright kind of  house up on the rise to the side of this house but I'll keep this one just for the grandkids to hang out in and I'll connect it with all kinds of stone and wood walkways like Nora Roberts' house that I saw on Sunday Morning a couple of weeks ago.

Then I'll buy shiny new bikes for all the kids in our little village in Mexico for Christmas.  If you guys haven't been following my blog for long you probably don't know that I turn into an elf when I head down to Mexico.  I'm very involved with the toy drive for our village and this is the time of year I have to go around and beg for money and I hate it.  So I'd just buy the bikes myself and be done with it.  BTW, if you notice an elf leaving comments on your blogs, that means I'm signed into the wrong account.

Then I'll build me a traditional Bahamian house with views of both the Sea of Abaco and the Atlantic Ocean in Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas because that's where I belong, I just can't afford to live there.

And of course, my kids and grandkids will be set-up in grand style.  That goes without saying.

But you know what?  While I was dreaming all these dreams I had the thought, "If I won the lottery and I had all of this and I was still drinking, I'd still be miserable."

I'd rather be sober and happy.

And win the lottery.

Mike

A couple of years ago, I was sitting in a bar down in Mexico, imagine that, it was our usual Friday afternoon crowd and we were starting to get our loud on.  I was already starting to try and "manage" my drinking, hell, I'd been trying to manage it since I started.  Sitting smack dab in the middle of the empty Modelo cans and full ashtrays sat this man, Mike, quietly sipping his Diet Pepsi and laughing with good nature about the ribbing he was getting for providing some extra, um...chum on a recent fishing trip. I knew of this man, I'd never met him, but you know how we are when we are at that point in our drinking, so sick of ourselves, so desperate for any message of hope, constantly looking for someone to throw us a  lifeline.  Someone must have whispered in my ear once, "You know he's an alcoholic. Bad.  Real big in AA." I know now that Mike would never have wanted someone whispering those things in my ear, he would have wanted them to holler those words loud enough for the whole bar to hear.  He repeated those same words to me just a few minutes later, when I'd worked up enough courage and had enough bourbon in me to wiggle my way into a seat across from him.  He told me about his drinking, how bad it was, he told me about going to the hospital with severe pancreatitis and telling the doctor there, "You know I drink" and she said, "I know" and he said, "I drink a lot." and she said, "I know." He told me about going to rehab and he told me about his life in AA.

He told me he'd been sober 18 years.  He told me about how damn good his life is.  The joy and the disbelief in his good fortune radiated in his quiet smile and in every word he spoke.

He told me about Hope.

Mike passed away about a week ago and I wrote his wife, Lynette.  I'd already told her about mine and Mike's conversation in that bar and what it had meant to me, on my one year sober anniversary, Mike was in the hospital and I asked her to tell him, "Thank you."  The day before yesterday, I wrote her and told her how I had always looked at her and Mike's marriage as one of those star-struck lucky ones.  That she was blessed.  This is the lovely and hope-filled message she wrote me back.


You are such a sweetheart for sending me this note. You have no idea how much it means to me.
Mike and I used to talk about that other kind of marriage, the same-space forced-proximity too-financially-tangled-up-to-escape kind. We were so, so lucky. No, I would never have wanted to miss out on 20 years of my sweetheart to escape the tough times in those two decades, or heartbreak in the end. I am glad that you have found that kind of love too. We are blessed, Kary.
This is something that I wrote for Mike's funeral. It was such a good service, lots of AA people there, and no preaching. The man who led the thing was one of Mike's oldest friends in AA and he shared personal stories about Mike's impact on others that were just lovely.
If you have to have a funeral, it was a great one.

"Mike and I went to a poker game together after a Friday night AA meeting, the night before our first real date. Close to midnight, he dealt the last hand of five card draw. I picked up my cards to find my first ever royal flush ~ in hearts. The odds of that are about one in a million. When I raked in the biggest pot of the night, Mike looked at me across the table with that beautiful smile, and said "alright, babe!" I took a big chunk of his money that night, and he laughed about it. Something about his happiness in my good fortune made me think at that moment that he was the one.

And he was. Mike and I were perfect together from the start. We had a one-in-a-million, royal flush kind of life together. He made me laugh every single day and his warmth and love were as constant as the sun and the waves of that green ocean he loved, even in the hardest times.One of the last things Mike said to a friend, just after he'd awakened in ICU, a week before he died, was this: "I am blessed." He was blessed and he knew it. And I was blessed to have 20 years with him. Though people tell me life goes on,

It's impossible to imagine a life without my sweetheart, without that smart, funny, happy, man to share the days with. I will miss him the rest of my life."One day at a time, Kary. I know there's a next life coming up and I can't imagine what it will hold. It will be different, I know that. And I wish he were here, but I know that he is now healthy and free of illness and ... well, I'd say peaceful and happy, but no matter how sick he became, he was always peaceful and happy. :-)

In the ICU, he saw something incredible over my left shoulder, something that lit up his face and stunned him. What was it? I don't know, but next he said "The door closed," and three days later he was out on the regular floor at the hospital when he said, very matter-of-factly, I'm going to die. He knew. He also saw what was coming for a moment, and it thrilled him. He spent the next day with this amazing smile on his face saying over and over again "wow!" He was just recovering his verbal ability at that point. I wish he could have told me more about what he saw, but things work out the way they're supposed to. He's in a good place and I am grateful for that

.and now I've just yakked your ear off!! Thank you again for writing. What a gift you gave me this morning. hugs, lynette

Mike, buddy, you're still sending me messages of Hope.  Thank you.  Kary

September Collage

Sweet little rock 'n' roller, sweet little rock 'n' roller
Her daddy doesn't have to scold her
Her partner can't hardly hold her
Because she never gets any older
Sweet little rock 'n' roller

-------Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller: Rod Stewart

My last day of work was Friday.  I cried.  I've left that place a dozen times before and I've never cried.  My co-workers said they'd miss me....and they meant it.  None of them know what this summer has meant to me with all the shifting and changing reasons for me to be back there.  None of them, the ones that knew me before or the newbies, would not have recognized me a year ago.  My boss said, "Thank you." and I said, "No, thank you.  You'll never know how much I needed this."  He knows a little bit because I told him.  He's known me thirty years, he wouldn't have recognized me a year ago either.

I hit the mountains just as the sun was going down and home was still two hours away, the cap'n wanted me to get a hotel and wait until morning to make the twisty-scarey drive instead of doing it in the dark but I wanted to get home.  Our cabin is an old simple A-frame and our bedroom is in the loft. From our bed you can look out at the mountains and I was determined to wake up in my own bed and see my mountains first thing in the morning.  The cap'n conceded reluctantly, he knows how strong-willed I am.  That's new, that strong-will, well maybe not but it's been cowering in the back of the liquor cabinet for a few years.  Too many years.

I white knuckle it up the twisty-terrifying road at 40 mph, I can see the dark mountain looming over me, I keep my eyes glued to the white line on the side of the road, a deer stares at me from the side of the road, I hope he doesn't decide to play chicken and run out in front of me because I'll have heart attack out here in the middle of nowhere.  But hey, my BAC will be zero! 

The deer displayed uncommon good sense and stayed put on the side of the road until I made it past.  I made it home safe and sound.

I woke up in the morning as the sun was lighting up the aspens on my mountain.

Saturday was a glorious sunny day.  My poor flowerbeds bore the proof of my summer abandonment, my delphiniums and poppy's are stunted little scraggly things where they've even bothered to come up but the native bushes that the cap'n and I transplanted are bursting forth in their short-lived riotous fall colors and the unruly brave little pansies have sprouted up among the gravel in the driveway.  The cap' made fun of me at the beginning of the summer when I dug a few up and put them in my flower boxes and covered the soil with gravel to retain what scarce water they would get. They're thriving and he's incredulous.  Look who's laughing now, buddy.

Taking advantage of being apart from the cap'n and his somewhat limited movie interests this summer, I watched Julie and Julia one afternoon and, of course, had to order the cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, and, of course, the total amount was 2 cents short of the amount needed to get free shipping so I ordered the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking also.  I made Braised Pork Chops with Tomatoes, Cream, and Porcini Mushrooms.       AAAAAMAZING!

The cap'n was getting a little tipsy and I said, "You might want to think about slowing down.  I only have three nights with you and I want to enjoy them."  He said, "Okay, I'll just top this off with soda.  And he did.  AAAAAMAZING!

Sunday I decided to hook my laptop up to our less than mediocre, down-right pitiful oxygen deprived internet up here and, of course, it didn't work.  Lots of fiddle-farting around on my own trying to fix it, a little bit of snarling at the cap'n when he timidly offers helpful suggestions, lots of time on hold to various techie support services, and finally after a little bit of helpful advice (remove the battery, turn off the modem and let the computer reset itself), it worked, in its mediocre, down-right pitiful oxygen deprived way.  I told the cap'n, "I need a drink.  I think this might have triggered a relapse." He said, "No, you don't."  I was joking, making light, that's what I do, that's a Hickey thing, to make light of the heavy stuff, to laugh at our weaknesses.  I am a stoic, smart-ass, always ready with the wise-crack out the side of my mouth, Hickey, even when I'm quaking in my boots.

In some random conversation we were having, I made the comment to the cap'n, "Nobody's perfect."

He looked at me and said, "You are."

My breath caught.  Once more, if even for just a moment, he thinks I'm perfect.  Once more.

Today the cap'n left for another two weeks of work and I'll be alone up here on the mountain, which means really alone.  I know one soul that I can call if I have a problem up here, this is my hermitage, my Walden Pond, and while I'm a little intimidated by all that alone time, I'm, at the same time, relishing it.  It's been a strange summer for the me and the cap'n, we've lived in each others' pockets for so long, but I think it's been for the good.

So there's a handful of my weekend memories, just like those handfuls of fall leaves we used to collect for collages when we were kids, some of them have been held onto too tightly and may be a little bruised, and some of the brittle edges may have crumbled but when you throw them all together it's a beautiful brilliant thing.

So now I'm sitting here in my cabin, there's a fire in the woodstove, a from-scratch Bolognese sauce is simmering on the stove and I'm blasting Rod Stewart. Not that old fart stuff he's been singing in the last few years, nope I'm belting out the good stuff, Young Turks, Maggie May, Down Town Train...

Time to get off my sweet little rock'n'roller ass and dance!

Update:  The cap'n just called me on his way to the airport and told me how proud he was of me, how wonderful it was not to have to worry about me 24/7.  He said, "You have no idea."

Oh, yes I do.

One Year

 (The gang from mmabsers will get this pic.  My apologies to shutterstock for stealing this but it was too perfect)

Days of Sobriety: 363, One Year.  Hallelujah! I want MORE!

This morning I'm reminded of the very first mornings I wrote this blog, I've been finding all kinds of distractions and things I "needed" to do before I sat down to type this out.  As usual, I've asked my Co-writer to chime in and let me know what he wants me to say but it seems he's letting me throw my own party today.

Why am I putting this off, why, of all mornings, is this so difficult? "(I know, I know", my six year old self is waving her hand in the back of the room, "Pick me! Pick me")

I'm putting this off because I know it is impossible to put into words what this year has meant to me.  But I'll try my best.

I am sitting here looking out the front door of this shitty little apartment at this rainy, blustery, almost fall day, I have a cup of hot tea at my elbow and I can smell it's cinnamon apple sweetness, and I am content.  Once more a warm cup of tea brings an appreciative smile to my face.  Once more a cold autumn day entices me with dreams of a long hot bath, a roast cooking in the oven, a soft throw a good book and socks on cold feet.  This is enough.  This is everything.  I couldn't ask for more.

In my quest of avoidance, I traipsed through a few of my favorite blogs,  Patty wrote about passing her nursing exams, Riversurfer wrote of being in love, and SoberMom wrote of paths taken and I read all of them with tears of many colors prickling behind my eyelids waiting to overflow as my heart is overflowing with such humble gratitude this morning.  Okay, a few of those tears couldn't wait any longer.  Once more my life is overflowing with the graceful loveliness of friendship and being cared for and being able to care for.  That is so much more than I could have dreamed of.  More than I thought I'd ever deserve again. Thank you guys, I wish I could fully express my gratitude but there are not enough words.

In another delay tactic this morning, I sorted through a couple of bags of goodies I have squirreled away for the grandkids and sat them out on the bed so I could mail them later.  I picked up a soft pink flannel blanket trimmed in wide satin ribbon with a little kitten and puppy embroidered in simple X's in one of the corners.  I made this blanket thirty-two years ago when I was pregnant with my oldest son, back then you didn't know what you were having until the baby arrived.  It wasn't until this year that I finally got a little girl to send it to, my granddaughter Atalie.  As I rubbed the satin ribbon against my cheek this morning, I was so relieved and proud to know that she would only have memories of a sober grandma.  That when I hug her and nuzzle my nose in her sweet, sweet neck, making her giggle, that I'll want to linger and hold on to that moment instead of being distracted wondering where my drink is, as I was with her big brother.  That someday she might be proud to have me at her wedding, that she will never have the worry that I might shame her.  Once more, I have faith in myself.  Once more, I am proud. Once more I have self-worth and that is priceless.

Later today I'll do some laundry and pack a bag for my trip to Colorado this weekend.  I'm not going home yet, the hospital has asked me to stay on for a couple more weeks (another little deposit into my self-worth account) so the cap'n and I are meeting up for another conjugal visit (waggly eyebrows) at a rustic little cabin by a lake.  I bought a few little enticements a few weeks ago that I'll throw in there. Once more the feel of something new and sexy sliding over my body makes me giddy.  ( Okay, I know the visuals of a 50 year old menopausal woman and her 64 year old love interest getting it on are probably making you of the younger crowd a little nauseous. Get over it.) I'm not sure what this summer apart has meant for the cap'n and me and what adjustments will have to be made when we are back to co-habitating, but I do know it has been a demonstration of his faith in me and his devotion to me and what is best for me.  He vehemently didn't want to live apart for three months but he supported me.  Which is what he has done throughout this tortuous journey, which is what he has always unflaggingly done, held me up.  Once more I feel worthy.  Once more I feel I am carrying my load in this marriage, instead of being carried.  Once more, he has is wife back.  And I am so fortunate.

So tomorrow starts another year.  Bring it on, once more I am ready.

9-11

 “Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It’s a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It’s also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend–even a friend whose name it never knew. “
- President George W. Bush, December 11, 2001

Day 363 of Sobriety

11 years ago today, I was on my sailboat at the Gangplank Marina in Washington, DC across the Potomac from the Pentagon. The cap'n and I were busy getting ready to catch a plane back to Kansas later that morning, the friend that was taking us to the airport knocked on our boat and said, "Are you guys watching the news? I don't think you guys are going anywhere today." We hurried and turned on the news and watched the second plane fly into the trade center, a few minutes later we heard a plane flying low over the marina, we rushed up to the cockpit and heard a loud explosion and watched a cloud of smoke rise across the Potomac. The Pentagon had been hit.

I spent the rest of the day getting drunk.

Where were you?

Yes, It Is!!

Day 357 of Sobriety

I was sitting out on the front porch of my shitty little apartment shooting the shit with my neighbor, Kyvan, this evening.  Kyvan is a driller in the oil field, and if you know much about oil field workers, you know that  about the closest most of them get to refinement is what happens to that stuff that they're drilling that big hole and losing a few fingers for..  I can say that with pride because my daddy spent 30+ years in the oil field and he always liked to make note of all the years he spent in the field and the fact that he retained all of his digits.

Kyvan is also a recovered alcoholic and drug addict with 12 years of sobriety under his belt, I know this because my friend/landlady told me that Kyvan's first day of sobriety was the day he moved in next door, which was 12 years ago.  I also know this because another friend told me that Kyvan helped her daughter get off the crack and booze.

Kyvan does not know I am an alcoholic.  Or he didn't, but when we were discussing our mutual acquaintance, the daughter of my friend, I thought it appropriate that I let him in on my little secret.

"You know," I said, "I'm an alcoholic, too."

 "It'll be a year within the next week," I added with what I thought was just the right amount of humility.

"Well," Kyvan replied thoughtfully, running his tongue under his bottom lip as if he was getting ready to let go with a big wad of chew (which he also gave up 12 years ago), "Ya gotta start somewhere."

I blinked at him dumbfounded for a minute, and then I burst out laughing.

Who was I to think that my peasly, measly, almost year would impress him?  I'm sure he's seen the likes of me come and go and come and go again.

And then I thought of how I view the people with all those years of saying, "No" under their belts and how it must be so blase for them now and how the struggle has got to be practically  non-existent for them.  And really, after all those years do they really deserve much attention?  Certainly not as much as I, who still thinks about drinking on a daily basis, and even today had an occasion to think, "I wish I could have a drink before I do this."

And then I thought of how I view the people who are just starting out, the ones that are getting their Day 1's, and Day 30's, and Day 100's under their belt and the pull of the booze is still the stronger opponent in their game of tug-of-war and I'm still not putting my bets on them because that ground under their feet is still to damn slippery.

And then I made myself remember how hard-won and amazing every one of my 357 days have been and how proud and thankful I was/am when I woke/wake up in the morning after making the choice not to drink the day before. 

And then I made myself look ahead and try to picture myself 10 or 20 years from now and I wonder if I will have let my sobriety become monotonous or if I will forget how hard I struggled and how much I valued my early sobriety. How will I keep myself from being tempted to relinquish this miracle?  Will all that time spent sober some how fool me, once again, into believing I am in control.

 I looked into Kyvan's 12 years sober eyes and I could see the gratitude and pride that I knew was mirrored in my own 357 days sober eyes.

That's when I realized that every day we stay sober is a Big Fucking Deal!