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."

Green Up!

A woman hired a contractor to repaint the interior of her house. The woman walked the man through the second floor of her home and told him what colors she wanted for each room. As they walked through the first room, the woman said, "I think I would like this room in a cream color."

The contractor wrote on his clipboard, walked to the window, opened it and yelled out, "Green up!" He then closed the window and continued following the woman to the next room. The woman looked confused, but proceeded with her tour. "In this room, I was thinking of an off blue."

Again, the contractor wrote this down, went to the window, opened it and yelled out, "Green up!"

This baffled the woman, but she was hesitant to say anything. In the next room, the woman said she would like it painted in a light rose color. And once more, the contractor opened the window and yelled, "Green up!"

Struck with curiosity, the woman mustered up the nerve to ask, "Why do you keep yelling 'Green  up' out my window every time I tell you the color I would like the room?"

The contractor replied, "Because I have a crew of blondes laying sod across the street." 

Update:  I was belly aching, again, at mmabsers chat the other night, bitching that my pink cloud had floated off and that sobriety had become...mundane. Stretch, yawn stretch.  Which is just ludicrous in light of my last post.

One of my fellow mmabsers said, "There is a saying in AA about keeping it green." (Do you see an obsession with AA developing here?)

That hit home.  I've been wandering around, looking for my pink cloud, but I was doing nothing to bring it back.  I wasn't blogging, I wasn't reading blogs, I wasn't participating on the message boards, instead I was just like the drinker I used to be, pouring booze down my throat, knowing that it was making me miserable, but being too damn ambivalent to do anything about it.

"You have to work the program."  Uh-oh, there it is again.

I ran into the lady that I mentioned in my last blog, the one that reached out to me through a friend. We were both at another fundraiser and I did my best to avoid her.  Why did I do that?  Was I afraid that she was going to run up to me and grab me in a choke hold and start shoving the big blue book down my throat, page by page.  I had just complained to my friend that I feel like such an outsider these days, that people were either alternately avoiding me or else they couldn't wait to tell me how much they'd been, or not been, drinking lately.  It makes me sad that people are afraid of me and avoid me, and here I was doing the same thing.  But to be truthful, she seemed to be trying to avoid me too, as if she was regretting the advance she had made.

Anyway, I felt bad about being so ungrateful so I decided to act like a normal adult and respond to her kind offer of support the way grown up people do these days, I contacted her on facebook.

She wrote back this morning and said she was glad that I had wrote, that she and another woman were forming an AA group in Progreso, (a short 6 mile hop instead of the 40 minute trek to Merida) and she'd love for me to attend.  I wrote back and said, "I'd be happy to."

"Green Up!"

Juggling

I just wanted to let you all know that I haven't run off and joined the circus (although it is circus season down here and if you think circus's in the states look a little rough around the edges, you should come to Mexico. Shudder!), I'm just juggling priorities right now and trying not to drop anything.

How wonderful!

To have a life. To be busy.  To have a purpose.  To have a reason to get up in the morning other than drink!!

To be sober!

I am so grateful.

Now to change my train of thought in the middle of the tracks, as I'm wont to do.  A member posted on the moderation management board the other day that she was grateful for the struggle, she was grateful that at least she had a desire to change when it seemed so many didn't.  So many seemed to be happily drinking themselves to death.  (not her exact words or intent, I'm taking artistic license here).

I wrote back and said, "Don't be too sure.  You don't know that those people don't wake up every day and say to themselves, "Today is the day I'm going to quit. Today is the day, I'm going to take back my life." only to fail once again."

That was me.  It may have looked like I was just a drunk who didn't care while deep down, underneath the blood shot eyes, splotchy skin, shaky hands...I was consumed with the desire to change.

I remember there were these two guys I knew in high school, I'll call them Bubba and Butch.  Bubba was your typical muscle brained athlete who liked to pick me up and dump me in the trashcan or body slam me on the wrestling mats, that was his way of showing me that he liked me.  Butch was the stereotypical dreamy bad boy with big beautiful green eyes, long feathered hair (it was the 70's), soft lips (yep, I know for a fact they were soft) and, down deep, a heart of gold.

They were teenage hard partying boys, that grew into adult hard partying men.  They did drugs, a lot of drugs, they didn't go to college, they held and lost multiple jobs and women.  I liked them a lot but I always held myself above them.  I was better than them. I didn't hold out much hope for either of them.  I figured they'd go through life stoned and wind up as shriveled shaky old drunks at the ripe old age of 49, minus the majority of their teeth, on a liver transplant list. If they were lucky.

I lost track of them through the years but lo and behold, through the magic of facebook, I found them again a couple of years ago.  And guess what?  They had sobered up and cleaned up their act and there I was flushing my life down the proverbial shitter of alcoholism.

Alcohol doesn't play favorites and it doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, famous, infamous, brilliant, or just an average Joe, there are no advantages.

If Bubba, Butch and I can do it, you can.

Stronger

“When others in doubt, your strong belief steers.”
― Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident

“It just be life, that's all. Ain't nothin' happened to you, ain't happened to most women whether they care to admit it or not. You strong, Babygirl. You a woman. You gotta be.”
― Marilyn Fullen-Collins 

“you never know how strong you are... until being strong is the only choice you have.”
― Cayla Mills

“Where the will is strong there’ll always be a way
The dream goes on forever and a day”
― Samael

Stronger!  That is my word for the year.  I'm kind of borrowing it from Lance Armstrong's philosophy, "Live Strong," minus the performance enhancing drugs and years of lying or purported lying.  Been there, done that.

Why Stronger, not strong?

Because I already feel incredibly strong.  Stronger than I ever remember feeling in my life.  Others have always commented on what I strong person I am, but in my past I found that statement ludicrous.  Couldn't they see the real me behind the facade, the one that felt on the verge of crumbling if someone poked too hard.  The hairline cracks snaking across the eggshell thin surface, breath held tight in fear of shattering.

Then I did. Crumble and shatter, that is.  And everyone saw that it was all an act.

I could have laid there in pieces, but I didn't.  I rebuilt. Me. Stronger!

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I had a mantra that I repeated to myself as I lay in bed at night, a quivering pile of splintered shards of myself.

Dear God,

Help me,

To

Be Better,

(I would try to picture in my mind a healthier, whole me.  It was so hard to remember what I looked like)

Live Better,

(To have just a semblance of a life again.)

Love Better.

(To once again be able to feel real love, for myself, and others)

It worked.

I am better, I live better,  I love better.

May I present my new mantra:

Dear God,

Help me,

To

Be Stronger,

(physically, emotionally, spiritually)

Live Stronger,

(I have jumped so many hurdles in the last year, conquered so many fears, I feel so capable)

Love Stronger.

(Oh yeah! Watch out!)

Chasing My Own Tail

This video reminds me of me when I was drinking, especially the warning at the end about keeping "the girl" away from hard objects. LOL


I'm busy chasing my ass these days trying to wind up the toy drive and get ready for Santa's visit to Chelem so I'm going to cheat on my blog and post some responses that I have posted on the message boards in the last couple of days. They pretty much sum up my life these days.  This first one is to a woman who posted on the mmabsers board about her discomfort in social situations while not drinking.  In her posts she said, "I'm not like Kary May who can go out with her drinking friends and still have fun."

Maggie, I'd like to clarify or re-evaluate my position on going out and having "fun" with the drinking buds.

I think in my first year of sobriety I was so focused on getting through everything without drinking and trying to prove to myself and everybody else that I could do it and that I hadn't changed, I was still the same "fun and frolic" Kary May that I'd always been. When I made it through those situations, I thought, "Wow, I made it through, my life hasn't really changed, I just don't drink anymore."


I was still trying to be "on" all the time.

Now that I'm in my second year of sobriety the focus has shifted and it's not just about getting through life without drinking. The novelty of me not drinking has worn off for both me and my friends. I'm no longer Kary May who used to be a drunk, now I'm just a person who doesn't drink. I am finding most social events awkward and I feel stiff and boring when it comes to meeting new people. I know that the "drinkers" I meet are going to think the same of me. That still bothers me a little. I still like hanging out with my friends but I know that when they are in the mood to really hang one on, I'm not their first choice to hang with and I still feel left out. Plus, I have the cap'n to deal with who wants to stay and really hang one on with them when I'm ready to go home.

I've always known that I prefer solitude and I drank to overcome that, I can't do that anymore so maybe it's time to quit trying to convince myself that I still need to be the social butterfly I used to be.

My previous 30 years were all about drinking, last year was all about not drinking and this year and the rest of my life is all about figuring out how I want to live my life. It's not all sh$#s and grins, but it's life.

This is the second response I wrote to a post from a member on the Moderation Management message board who was trying to complete a "30", but was having difficulty with a business partner and wanted to blow her "30" and head to the liquor store.  For those of you who didn't attempt moderation on your way to sobriety, a "30" is 30 days of abstaining from drinking in an attempt to reset your drinking attitude and reintroduce you to a life without drinking.  My many unsuccessful attempts at a "30" were what convinced me that permanent abs was the life for me.

I am exactly where you are. Once more I have bitten off more than I can chew and I only have myself to blame. I am very involved in a toy drive down here in Mexico, ok, to put it bluntly, I'm the head MF in charge because no one else will step up to the plate. This weekend we are having a home tour and, of course, I put my home on the list to be toured and I am about to pull my hair out. Just had some construction done and we ordered tile that was supposed to be in 5 weeks ago, every week it has been, "Saturday the truck will be here." Yesterday I checked again and "Hallelujah, the tile is here!" But it's the wrong tile!!!!! I'm so sick of hearing, "This is Mexico, get used to it."

***Paragraph deleted due to excessive bitching.

I have wanted a drink more this week than I have since the first weeks I quit drinking. But I can't have one and that is all there is to it. No arguing and no bargaining or pleading, no "just this once" or "I'll do my 30 next month". That's the difference between moderating and absing. You chose to abs this month, you have to take drinking off the bargaining table. Next month or the month after that is not going to be any easier.

I have to keep reminding myself that my problems are "1st world" problems (I stole that term from my friend SoberMomRocks) and down here I live among people that can't even dream of having 1st world problems, they're too busy trying to survive.

I also have to remind myself how thankful I am to have these problems, three years ago I didn't have them.  I was too busy drinking my life away. 

We can do this!

**** Sorry for the shitty cut and paste job on the earlier blog, hopefully it makes a little more sense now.  I think I've caught my tail and managed to shove my head up my ass. LOL!

 

Thanksgivings

My dad loved this picture, it hung in his dining room for years.  He liked the simpleness of the man, the flannel work shirt, the furrowed brow, the work roughened hands and the simple meal.  Dad liked to point out that as little as the man seemed to have he still took the time to be thankful.

I get your message, Dad.

Thanksgiving Day is almost done and I'm tired but I think it would be remiss of me to not come here and try to express my gratitude on this day, it's the least I can do, unlike the man in the picture, I have so much.  But having more does not make my gratefulness a more splendid thing, gratitude is worth more when you have less because it is a pure thankfulness, it's not borne by worldly things or possessions, it is borne by grace.

It is a thankfulness for just being given one more day, one more meal, one more chance to do good, to do better, to do more, to become closer to God.

Thank you God, for another chance to hear the soft dawn birdsong as a pink blush steals over the lavender shadows of my garden wall, and thank you also for the cacophony of the grackles that rises from barren branches of winter trees at dusk.

Thank you for the softness of my granddaughter's curls as I bury my nose in the baby powder scent them, and the way my grandson ducks his head away when I try to do the same to him. "Ah, Grandma cut it out, I'm too big for that."  But then he lays his head on my shoulder as I read to him and I'm able to rub my cheeks against his bristly burr cut and just for a little bit longer he's not too big.

Thank you for the look of pride in my husband's eyes when he tells others, "I don't know what I'd do without her." and the sincerity in my son's voice when he says, "I miss you."

Thank you for the ability to once again answer a friends plea, "I need you."

Thank you for giving me back me.

Mine is a thankfulness borne by my sobriety. Without it, I have nothing.

Happy Thanksgiving My Friends.

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.

Fluffy Stuff

There's the view from the ridge off to the side of my cabin this morning and that's about how my head feels, all kinds of fluffy winter wool has gathered there but it melts away before I can get my hands around it.  I'm left sitting here at 11:30 am in my nightclothes and bed hair, scrubbing my hands over my face trying to form a snowball of a thought.

It wasn't that way yesterday, yesterday my head was brimming with valuable tidbits to share, but of course, yesterday I didn't have time to write a blog, so I jotted down some notes about the snowflakes that were whirling around in my brain yesterday.  I never do this, jot things down, that is, because usually by the time I sit down to write a blog, all the blogs that have formed in my head throughout the day or week before seem pointless and sometimes downright ridiculous.

But since this morning's fluff is not abating, I'll try to conjure something up from yesterday's scribbles.

Here's the first one:

"Feeling Mystical"  You've got to be fucking kidding me.  Okay, if I recall this one came about when I knocked a little wooden sailboat off of its perch where I had placed it 8 years ago when the cap'n and I were still holding onto the lines of our sailboat, where we had lived for 12 years, and trying to keep that dream afloat while also admitting that maybe it was time to let it go.  That's when we bought this cabin.  We continued to split our time between here and the boat until we bought the house in Mexico and we put the boat on the market.  It's still there.  On the market.  Four years later. So yesterday when that tiny sailboat fell from it's shelf I was hoping it was a message from beyond that the f'ing boat (our pet name )had finally been sold and we were going to be able to let go of it completely, finally.  Or it could mean that the f'ing boat fell off its jacks and has extensive damage for which we no longer carry insurance.

"Perfume for Attie" Ah, I like this one.  My daughter-in-law is visiting her mother in Denver and she has my granddaughter, Atalie Jolene, with her.  We made arrangements to meet for lunch yesterday and that is why I didn't have time to write a blog.  As I was getting ready, I spritzed on my perfume.  I only wear one perfume and it is Giorgio's Beverly Hills.  I started wearing it more than 25 years ago when my mother gave me a bottle that someone had bought for her.  "It doesn't smell good on me," she said.  Through the years I've had several people ask me "what are you wearing" and when I reply that it's Giorgio's they always say, "I tried that and it didn't smell good on me."  One time when I walked into a shop in Key West the shopkeeper said, "My God, what are you wearing? You smell dee-vine."  When a gay guy tells you, you smell dee-vine, you better keep wearing what you're wearing.  I hope whenever my granddaughter smells Giorgio's, remember smell is the biggest trigger for memories, it brings back happy memories of me.

"Jodi Piccoult-the dream"  I had my first drinking dream in a long time the other night, actually it was more of a hangover dream.  I actually dreamed what a hangover feels like.  Ugh, thanks for the memory.  When I mentioned the dream during mmabsers chat the other night, someone asked me if I thought this meant anything.  I immediately got defensive and said, "No, I'm not having any urges or anything."  But when I was laying in the tub yesterday re-reading a Jodi Piccoult book there was this line, "When we're awake, we see what we need to see.  When we're asleep, we see what's really there."  Maybe that dream was a warning, maybe I'm getting too complacent, maybe I need to keep doing the work, maybe I need to work harder.  Maybe I needed to revisit my past to remind myself not to forget how lost I was.

"Puzzle Pieces"  This is the thought that struck me as really inspired yesterday.  Today? Mmm, not so much.  I was actually thinking of you, my fellow bloggers, and my fellow members of the message boards I am involved in and I was thinking that sometimes we may get discouraged and others may seem to say what we want to say so much better and so much more succinctly than us, but then I had this thought that sobriety (and life, for that matter) is like a big jigsaw puzzle and we are each holding a piece of the puzzle and someone out there is looking for that exact piece that we are holding to make their puzzle complete, or at least enable them to see more fully what the whole picture is going to look like so they can go look for that next piece.  So don't get discouraged, someone's looking for what you have to offer.  Someone needs to hear what you have to say.

"The Rosary" My brother reminded me that October is the month of Mary and the Rosary so I've been saying a rosary everyday this month. My brother says he remembers our mom, Ruth, corralling all of us Hickey kids into the living room every night of October to say the rosary, he said it was like herding cats.  I don't remember saying the rosary every night, but I do remember kneeling in front of the green crushed velvet rocker that was my designated kneeling station and making pretty shapes out of my rosary beads.

  Clearer in my mind are the terrifying nights of withdrawal when I counted out the Hail Mary's on my fingers and begged for help, as my brother says, in one word, holymarymotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.

It is so much better to sit in my old cherrywood rocker, pulled up to the front door so I can see the birds squabble over their breakfast, and run those familiar comforting beads through my fingers.

So thankful that she listened.

WARNING!!! THERE'S STILL DANGER AHEAD

 

I want to thank you guys for your extremely kind accolades on my making it one year in sobriety and I promise I will take the time to address each of them tomorrow but first I want to thank you for pulling me back from the cliff this weekend. 

 "Whhaat?"

As I said in my last post, the cap'n and I were meeting up for a romantic interlude (under the guise of a Stanley, the blind killer bichon, exchange) this weekend.  There is this sweet little mountain village in the Southeast corner of Colorado called Cuchara and it is the only advantage I can think of to living in the Southwest corner of the state of Kansas as opposed to the Northeast corner of Kansas, we are closer to Cuchara.  My parents used to take me there as a kid and back then it was one block long consisting of a general store, a cafe, and a smattering of rustic log cabins surrounding it, now it is still one block long with three cafe/bars, a couple of  stores, a hotel, lots of realty offices and quite a few swanky model log homes cluttering up the mountainside.

There is a bar there called "The Dog Bar" which allows dogs in, it even has AA meeting times posted for the dogs of Cuchara.  And yes, of course, I have been drunk there before, a smattering of times.  The only two things I remember about the last time was that I had an argument with a fellow bar patron about a Jerry Jeff song and the hellacious, hangover plagued, six hour drive home to Kansas the next day.  That must have been before I started drinking myself well in the mornings after.

None of this was on my mind as I was driving up Friday afternoon, I was too busy basking in the golden glow of the aspens and the accomplishment of this year, but as I drove closer to the cabin I felt a little pang when I remembered there wouldn't be a drink waiting for me at the end of the drive.

We went to the Dog Bar for a hamburger that evening and all the locals (I don't think there are any real locals in Cuchara, I don't think anyone is actually from there, I think they all wandered in from Kansas and Texas and some of them just refused to go home) were starting to get  their Friday night loud on.  The band was tuning their guitars and one leggy blue-jeaned, down-vested blonde chick at the bar kept "Woo-Hooing" every time someone strummed a chord. Man, that bitch got on my nerves, couldn't be because she reminded me of someone I used to be, could it?

The band didn't seem to be in a hurry to get through their warm-up and the cap'n and I were exhausted so we payed our tab and headed back to our little rental cabin.

The cabin was perfection.  Just a tiny little thing with an iron bed loaded down with blankets and flannel sheets and a big picture window looking over a meadow pond and the snow dusted peaks in the distance.  We put our stockinged feet up on the coffee table and counted the stars reflecting on the pond from the comfort of the couch in the front room.

The next day we drove the mountain roads, oohing and ahhing at the autumn colors, like everyone else and all the while I was thinking of other autumn roadtrips and missing that cold beer in my hand.  At about two o'clock in the afternoon the cap'n asked me where I wanted to go next and I told him I'd be happy to sit on the deck of the cabin with a good book so we headed back.

The sun was shining and the dusting of snow had already melted off the peaks, I settled in with my Kindle and the cap'n went into fix himself a drink.  I was hit with a tsunami of nostalgia.  All the warm sun-filled afternoons of sitting with drinks in our hands, happy to be alive and congratulating ourselves on our lot in life, came rushing back and I was filled with such longing. I was homesick for the little arguments over whose turn it was to fix drinks, the delight and promise of a freshly made drink in my hand.  All so much bullshit, I know, I know.  But still.

When the cap'n drove over to the office to settle up with the manager that hadn't been there when we pulled in the night before, I picked up his drink and I thought, "Just a sip."

And I took one.

And I put the glass down and picked up my Kindle.

Then I looked at his glass again and thought, "Maybe after a year, I've learned my lesson.  Surely now I would recognize if I was getting into trouble and I could stop."

And I picked up the glass and took another sip.

And I put the glass back down.

I looked over to where the capn's vehicle was still parked over at the office and the thoughts started running together in my head, "It probably wouldn't take much to get a little high, just a little buzz, I don't want to get drunk, I just want a little buzz, maybe one more sip would do it."

And I hurriedly picked up the glass and took another sip.

And I put the glass back down.

But I didn't feel a buzz so I reached for the glass again and I thought, "What can I think of that will make me put this glass down?"

And I thought of all the kind things you guys had said about me on my one year soberversary and the faith you have in me.

And I didn't take a sip.

And I put the glass down.

And I didn't pick it back up.

When I got home this afternoon, I checked my email (there had been no internet at the cabin) and there was an email from my brother who had found sobriety almost 30 years ago through AA  (Shining Examples) and he congratulated me on my year and once more hinted that I should try AA.

"You know, honey, you can't keep it if you don't give it away." he admonished.

I am so thankful that all of you gave it away to me this week.  I will do my utmost best to return the favor.  I know I am guilty of sometimes of reading other blogs and thinking I have nothing to say that hasn't been said or that I can't relate to what the writer has written or even in a pique of adolescent petulance thought, "This blogger never comments on my blog, I'm not going to comment on hers." but really just saying you have faith in the person to get through whatever issues they are dealing with and to stay sober makes such a difference.  It did for me. 

P.S. Now about those sips, I'm choosing to put the emphasis on the fact that I stopped rather then the fact that I started.  I'm not going to let those three little sips take anything away from what I have accomplished, instead I'm going to acknowledge them as reminders that the wolf is still at the door and he's going to keep huffing and puffing, trying to blow my house down, and I've got to keep building my house stronger by, yes, writing this blog, participating on the message boards, reading and commenting on other blogs and giving it away every chance I get.

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?