How The Heck Are You 7/27/17: Woo-woo, woo-woo. Woo-woo, woo-woo. (Hum The Twilight Zone Theme)

Gosh, you know what? I really don't have much to report on today. I've had a long stretch of laziness this summer-except for when the granddaughter's been here. I need some motivation. I need to just do what I need to do. I need to get off my a$$ and go for a long walk, eat something that resembles a vegetable, do something with my hair!

Just one of those days when the self-improvement to do list seems endless. I am drowning in being gloriously human.

On another topic, I've been reading books about psychics, near death experiences,  and reincarnation this summer. Currently reading, "Many Lives, Many Masters," and according to what this "prominent psychiatrist" has discovered from the past life regressions of one of his patients, we carry our vices on to our next life if we don't conquer them here. Like one lifetime of battling booze ain't enough.

Really interesting stuff, if you believe in that kind of thing, and I kinda think I do. Oh and I really liked, The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven. Lessons For The Living."

What are you reading this summer? And...

How The Heck Are You?

Hot Stuff!

I knew I liked this guy for a reason-and not just because he's hotter than Papa Bear's porridge. I just want to squirt some honey on him and slurp him right up.

Echo

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” 
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

Those of us who have quit drinking are often asked what it took to finally break those chains. I don't know about the rest of you but I struggle with the answer because I can't really explain why that day, almost six years ago was the day. It just was and I'm so glad.

I've seen others try to explain it through the years, but this morning I read an especially beautiful description and plea called out from the mountain top over at Finding A Sober Miracle. I  so loved her comment that if you could look into the future and see your life and who you will be when you are sober, you'd quit right now.

I think it's so worthy of being shouted from every mountain top so here I am shouting it from mine: Read it!

 https://asobermiracle.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/hope-for-the-heavy-drinker/

School's Out!

The results of Carrie Fisher's toxicology tests have just thrown me for a loop this week. See, I'm one of those people who goes around saying every failure, every stumble, every relapse is part of the plan, in each one is hidden a vital lesson we have yet to learn in order to get to where we are meant to be. Obviously, if you quit drinking or drugging and then decide to try again, you had another lesson to learn. Right? That's what I used to think. But what one more lesson did Carrie need to learn? That addiction kills? That you shouldn't waste your chances? That those chances aren't without limit? That we know everything we need to know and we are wasting our lives waiting for that final magical lesson that is going to teach us something magical that will change the path of our life forever? That lesson doesn't exist and if you're waiting for it, you are wasting precious time.

So today I'm out there re-considering some things I once considered true. Sometimes we don't need to have anymore lessons, at some point we have to STOP looking for more education and spend the rest of our lives applying the lessons we have been taught.

The above meme could just as easily say, "Nothing is worse than missing an opportunity that could have saved our life."

Sometimes I ponder drinking again, maybe in 10 years, maybe if I take a trip to Paris or Italy... but you know what? I've learned the "I can quit drinking and be happier than I ever was drinking" lesson, I don't need to re-learn it.

How The Heck Are You?

How The Heck Are You? 6/6/2017: Trying is Success

To put it bluntly, I'm exhausted. The last five days have proven how out of shape I am, embarrassingly. Maybe I need to rent a 5 year old for the rest of the summer. One more imperfection. 

When do we finally accept that we're never going to be perfect? Is there a point where we finally relax and give ourselves a wink when we don't toe the line.  Am I ever going to not think that eating a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast sounds more inviting than a banana? Is procrastinating ever going to be a thing of the past? Not likely.

But then again, if we totally accept ourselves as we are, do we then quit trying, quit striving?  What does life become then? A chocolate chip breakfast wait until tomorrow existence? I don't want that either.

So I guess what I need to learn to accept is that I'm always going to be enticed by perfection, even though I probably won't strive hard enough to reach it. At least I'll strive. I can't let my acknowledgment of my imperfections keep me from trying.

So I guess I've effectively talked myself out of that chocolate chip cookie this morning. Maybe tomorrow.

"I try therefore I succeed."

How the Heck Are You?

How The Heck Are You 5/30/2017: Predictability is Under Appreciated

Just a gentle reminder

Good morning all! I seem to be in a serene period right now, God knows I needed it. Funny how that happens, how I can get pushed to my limit, to the point that I'm ready to give up, make a plan to give up, then everything smooths out and, once again, I feel like I can go on fighting.

Kind of like when I can't stand my hair any longer so I make a hair appointment and then the day of the appointment my hair looks better than it has in months. Kind of like when I was trying to figure out this drinking thing, I'd be ready to throw the towel  in (although I don't think you can ever do that once you start this fight), then I'd have one small victory, or more often, one more horrendous fallout from drinking and I'd decide I had more fight left in me. Those horrendous fallouts may have seemed like failures but usually they were the impetus I  needed to change...until I got enough sober rewards to stack up against them.

I think one reason things have seemed calmer in my world is that I'm back in a routine. This last winter in Mexico was somewhat chaotic, packing up and moving from place to place every few weeks. Now, I know I have months in front of me in which I don't plan on going anywhere. I can do my morning routine of saying my rosary and writing my morning pages, taking my bath, walking the dog... Routine grounds me and, for me, after years of the chaos of getting drunk every night and being hungover every morning, it is a privilege I never take for granted. Just last night I marveled, once again, at the fact that I actually have a bedtime routine.

Boy, I'm gabby this morning. Your turn, how the heck are you?

How The Heck Are You 5/22/17: Another One Of Those, "Life's Too Short" Posts

Can't really say how I am this morning, a little tired, a little depressed, but also hopeful and excited? I kind of remind myself of me when I decided to do something about my drinking problem-I feel beaten by my current circumstances and I am at the point I know I have to surrender this battle and I need to move onto battles I can win. Things have to change. "Have to" not, "should" or "I wish the would" they "have to" change. Without going into detail about what those circumstances are, I'll just say I am having more and more difficulty being happy, and I am one of those fortunate people that generally have a positive sunny outlook, so I need to go unearth that part of me again. So, we leave day after tomorrow to return to the states and I have made my mind up to embark on an exploration of how and where I actually want to live the rest of my life, or at least for the next year or two. Because life really is too short to live it unhappily.

I know this is very vague, but I'll keep you posted.

On that note, How The Heck Are You?

How The Heck Are You 5/19: Regrets Revisited

“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ” 
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

I've been thinking a lot about my How The Heck Are You post from yesterday, and questioning if I was being honest about my regrets. The thing about regrets, is once you start tracing them back, wishing you'd done something different, it never stops. If I'd never started drinking at all, I wouldn't be the person I am now and I finally like the person I am now. Would I like the person I would be if I hadn't struggled with drinking? Would I be as proud of myself? Would I choose not to fight as hard for things I want because I didn't know I was strong enough?

See what I mean?

I stumbled across the quote above this morning when I was looking for the daily MM facebook post and I guess I would have to say that I wish I hadn't spent as much time fighting to keep drinking. Because, while I might have lived more life in the 30+ years I drank, I've grown more in the 6 years since I quit. 

But, then again, I realize I needed every one of those struggles and battles to come to the decision I made to quit.

See what I mean?

 So...ok, one regret-I wish I would have reached out for help earlier, I wish I hadn't struggled so long on my own because it was the support of others reminding me to keep going that kept me on the path I needed to be on.

Thank you guys, I love you.

How The Heck Are You?

Still Kicking!

I'm not really sure why I haven't blogged recently, I guess I could say my life has gotten too busy, that I had to let something slip and my blog is what slipped. 

And, that would be true. Believe me, I'm not one of those who got sober and then left all of this muddling about in the muddy recovery trenches for higher ground, I depend on all that muddling about to remind me that I've made it out and want to stay out. Telling others every day that I am sober, is necessary for me to stay sober. Because, believe me, if I thought no one was looking or noticing, it would be so easy to slip. By staying sober for others, I stay sober for myself.

So, where have I been?  I spend a lot of my time, the majority of my time, the cap'n would say, over on the Moderation Management sites. Between the MM forum, the MM listserv, mmabsers (yes, MM has a community for those of us who have chosen not to drink at all), the MM Public Hub and the MM facebook page. Oh yeah, and in the MM Abs Chatroom on Wednesday nights.

I'm not listing all of those communities to say, "Hey, look at me and everything I do." Instead, I list them to show what it takes to keep me sober. For me, sobriety is work and while I still marvel at non-hangover mornings and sleep-filled nights, those are not enough for me to stay sober. I have to stand up in my virtual recovery world every day and say, "Hi, my name is Kary May, I'm an alcoholic and I'm not drinking today." These online communities are my smoky church basements. Some people would say, "You've replaced one addiction for another." and they're probably right, but this addiction isn't going to kill me and if I help a few people along the way, more better.

I am also not saying that anyone else has to become or should become this involved in the recovery world to stay sober, some people quit drinking and ride off happily into those glorious sunsets never to be heard from again. And, that's okay. Not everyone wants to be career soldiers. But, I do think you have to find a replacement addiction, but let's not call it an addiction, instead let's call it a purpose.

Too many times we wait until something horrible happens to change our drinking. Too many times that is a temporary change, just until the memories of horribleness and regret change.  What if instead, we chose a good reason to make that change. A new purpose. 

Ok, I know. We all already know that is the best way to go, don't we? But we don't do it. We think we can pursue that new purpose and still drink. The thing is, until you have crawled out of that miserable muddy trench and off the battlefield, you can't imagine the possibilities are waiting for you. You can't. You have to take a chance and believe. 

There is something amazing waiting for you. A purpose. And as I told myself long ago, "I know that purpose is not to go through life as a drunk."

As is my usual form, I've wandered totally off track and I wasn't even sure what track I was on to begin with. 

Thank you, to those who wrote and checked to make sure I was okay. I am. I'll try to do better about reporting in and stopping by to see all of you wonderful bloggers on your own blogs, but one reason I could abandon my post here for so long is because I know that that there are so many other amazing soldiers out on this battlefield saving lives. Don't sell yourselves short, that is what you're doing.

The Old Back And Forth

Sometimes I get really tired of going back and forth, I want to be happy and content in one place and just stay there forever, or at least until I get bored.

But that ain't how life works, is it?

I am back in Mexico and while I don't enjoy the days spent packing leading up to traveling here, or the travel, or the days of unpacking once I get here, the physical effort of that back and forth takes a miniscule amount of energy compared to the emotional effort. The emotional back and forth is draining.

During the summer, I live like a hermit in my mountain cabin, especially when the cap'n is working which is about 90% of the time. During the summer, I get to live life by my own rules and schedule and opinion. I get up when I want and go to bed when I want. I turn the tv on when I want, if I turn it on at all. I watch whatever shows I want, or sit on the computer all day long if  I want without someone there to make me feel guilty about ignoring them. I eat what I want, but still manage to feel guilty about a meal of potato chips or ice cream.

And best of all...

I don't have to discuss any of it with anyone.

There is no back and forth about, "Are you ready to go to bed?" or "What sounds good for dinner?"

(There's also no one talking at me, commenting about what the pundits are saying on "Meet The Press" or asking me about shopping receipts from yesterday when I'm trying to write a blog, which has happened about five times already while I have been trying to write these few lines.)

So, yes, the back and forth between Colorado and Mexico is difficult for me in more ways than geographical.

I haven't even talked about the drinking yet.

I still struggle greatly with the cap'n's drinking. I don't talk about it much on here out of respect for his privacy, but sometimes it overwhelms me so much...

During the summer, he is away but he also doesn't drink because he is working, so, even though it is long distance, during those too few months,I am married to a sober person. When we come to Mexico and he is not working, which at some point in the very near future, he will be doing on a permanent basis-not working that is-he drinks. I won't go into amounts or from what time in the morning until what time at night, but he drinks a lot. Like I used to.

And that back and forth is the scariest for me. Because I know I can't do it much longer. Certainly not for the rest of my or his lifetime. Life's too short.

It's scary for me also because it starts that old teeter-totter in my head.

"If I tried drinking again, I could stay in my marriage. Maybe I could moderate this time. Maybe I'd be happier than I am right now. Maybe drinking in moderation would fill those holes in my life that not drinking at all has left empty."

Then, yesterday, I was driving home from toy drive shopping with one of my best friends, a best friend who never knew me when I was drinking, a best friend I wouldn't have if I'd continued to drink and I was regaling her with stories about "Drinking Kary May." She'd heard some stories from other people but wanted to get it straight from the horse's mouth.

After sharing some of my funniest exploits, I told her, "I miss those times and I have to admit I haven't had near as much fun since I quit drinking. But the thing is, I know if I hadn't quit drinking, I probably would no longer have a relationship with any of my kids. I know I wouldn't be trusted with my grandchildren. I'd hate myself because of that. And I might very well be dead."

I can live with less fun.

I can live in this "place"-the not drinking place- happily and content forever.

I Did It!

When someone asks me if I'm never drinking again, I always say, "I'm going to wait five years, then see how I feel.

Well, five years is here....

Ask me in another five.

Actually, my soberversary was on September 13, but I've been busy.

Because,

Again,

I

Did

It!!!

The book is done!

As I say in the book, I have no idea what will happen with this book. I may enjoy a couple of days of accomplishment for it to only fade away. But the thing is, just like this blog, writing this book is something I was supposed to do. Did this blog bring me the fame and fortune or notoriety I might have dreamed of in the beginning? No. It brought me so much more. It brought me back to myself. I can't wait to see what this book brings, because I know it will be more than I ever expect.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and thank you all, every single blogger, recovery community member, oldies and newbies who have inspired me.

Now, I'm starting to sound like Miss America, so just give me my sash and my crown and I'll walk.

Oh, yeah, if you want to check out the book, hit the cover on the right upper side of this page. I hope you enjoy.

In case the button doesn't work, (I am not an IT tech!) here's the link:

Neighbor Kary May's Handbook To Happily Drinking Less, Or Not Drinking At All Quite Happily, With the help of the online community.  

Quite a mouthful, huh?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, if you order the book and then send me proof of purchase and the name of the online recovery community of your choice, I will donate half of the proceeds from your book back to the online community of your choice. 

One more thing, I cannot see who orders the book, in case you're worried.

I'm Listening

My old friend Hilda once described to me the day she relapsed after 6 years.

"It was just another day, I got off work and decided I wanted to drink, so I did," she said.

Followed by, "I've never been able to stay quit so long since then."

I couldn't understand how someone could give up 6 years of sobriety that easily, but then there was last week.

Just like Hilda's "just another day," last week was "just another week." Before I get you too worried, I did not drink. But I wanted to worse than I have since the early days of my sobriety. And there was no good reason, which makes me think, What if there had been a good reason?

Instead it was a week of the usual insecurities, those moments of feeling like an outsider, those moments of feeling I've not done as well as so-and-so or as much, those moments when my best will never be as good as someone else's and, really, why would I even try? Do I really want to set myself up for failure. For ridicule? What if I let everyone down?

I whined about it all week on the message boards and during chat, causing some alarm amongst those that see me as the Pollyanna of the non-drinking world, because that's usually my take on sobriety. I even whined to the cap'n.

"Sometimes I don't think you realize how hard it is. Sometimes, like right this very minute, I really, really miss drinking!"

He just told me that he "got it' which of course he doesn't since he still drinks. But he also told me how proud he is of me which helped a little.

Then Sunday morning rolled around. I've been making myself go to mass every Sunday lately, I'm not sure why, seems like I've done pretty well without it all these years. But just like when I started this blog, and just like when I decided to write the never-finished book, that inner voice-it's really not all that still, Eckhart, old buddy-has been urging me to go. Last Sunday was no different but I was steadfastly ignoring it and not feeling bad at all about it. Then, at the last minute, I decided to go.

See, I've learned that my inner voice usually knows something I don't.

The Gospel was a familiar one, the one where Jesus tells his apostles that they have to give up all their earthly goods to follow him.  The priest expounded on it by saying that it doesn't really mean that we have to drain our bank accounts and donate our houses to the homeless to do His will, it just means that we have to recognize what it is we're supposed to do and be willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to do that one thing.

Because it is the right thing for us.

Lightbulb!

I knew the one thing I had to do and I knew that I had to give up all my earthly insecurities to do it. Because it is what I'm supposed to do.  The tides turned and all the missing of drinking and feeling sorry for myself disappeared. I've been riding a cloud of "rightness" every since.

It was the same when I finally quit drinking, when I finally listened to the "right" voice and did what I knew I was supposed to be doing all along. Once I accepted that, the urges and the doubts disappeared. Because it was the right thing for me.

In the last 24 hours, I have seen four people return to the sobersphere, to their blog or to their online support community, after being gone for a while. They may not know it, but they are following that inner voice, they are doing the right thing.  Whether we believe in a Higher Power or not, we recognize what is right for us, we just need to learn to embrace it.

Even more, to revel in it.

Can I Open Up My Day Yet? Can I? Can I?

I went to mass yesterday and something the priest said struck me. He said that when he was considering the priesthood, he had so many doubts, he didn't know if he could do it. He asked an older priest, "Do you ever have second thoughts? Do you ever wonder if you made the right choice?"

The priest replied, "Of course, I sometimes wonder if I made the right choice, but it helps to remember the priesthood is not a sacrifice, it is a blessing, a gift."

This is how I feel about sobriety. Every day is still a gift, not a sacrifice. 

No Wonder It's So Damn Hard!

I got to read this article for my nursing continuing education hours.  I don't know whether I agree with the disease model of addiction or not-all those wordy arguments came to be meaningless to me because the only thing I needed to understand is that I needed to quit, whether I was diseased, whether my grandpa Hatch passed the bad genetics down to me, whether I was abused without knowing it in my childhood. None of it would change the final verdict.

But this article does explain to me, why it is so hard to quit. Why we can't just put it down. Why we fail at quitting so many times.

It's not all our fault.

Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction.

Author(s): Volkow N D, et al.
Journal: N Engl J Med. 2016; 374: 363-371. 58 references.
Faculty Disclosure: Nora D. Volkow, MD, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 6001 Executive Bld., Rm. 5274, Bethesda, MD 20892. Email: nvolkow@nida.nih.gov
Objective: Review and evaluate the latest advances and newest information in the area of Addiction

"Editor’s Note: This is essentially  a plea for more basic research in addiction.
Class: Basic science of addiction
Research guided by the brain disease model of addiction has led to the development of more effective methods of prevention and treatment and to more informed public health policies. Notable examples include the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008, which requires medical insurance plans to provide the same coverage for substance-use disorders and other mental illnesses that is provided for other illnesses and the proposed legislation that would reduce prison sentences for some nonviolent drug offenders because people who need treatment for drug and alcohol problems or mental health issues will be more likely to improve and reintegrate into society if they receive consistent care.
Advances in neurobiology have begun to clarify the mechanisms underlying the profound disruptions in decision-making ability and emotional balance displayed by persons with drug addiction. Addiction has been divided into three recurring stages: binge and intoxication, withdrawal and negative affect, and preoccupation and anticipation (or craving). Each stage is associated with activation of specific neurobiologic circuits and the consequential clinical and behavioral characteristics.
Binge and intoxication involves the same molecular mechanisms that strengthen synaptic connections during learning and memory formation. Environmental stimuli repeatedly paired with drug use may all come to elicit conditioned, fast surges of dopamine release that trigger craving for the drug, motivate drug-seeking behaviors and lead to heavy "binge" use of the drug. Whereas dopamine cells stop firing after repeated consumption of a "natural reward" (e.g., food or sex) satiating the drive to further pursue it, addictive drugs circumvent natural satiation and continue to directly increase dopamine levels.
Withdrawal and negative affect results because persons with addiction no longer experience the same degree of euphoria from a drug as they did when they first started using it. There are adaptations in the circuitry of the amygdala in the basal forebrain resulting in increases in a person's reactivity to stress and lead to the emergence of negative emotions. In addition to the direct and conditioned pull toward the "rewards" of drug use, there is a correspondingly intense motivational push to escape the discomfort associated with the after effect of use. Many state they continue to take the drug to escape the distress they feel when they are not intoxicated.
In preoccupation and anticipation, there are changes in the function for the prefrontal cortical regions, which involve the executive processes.  The impaired signaling of dopamine and glutamate in the prefrontal regions weakens the ability to resist strong urges or to follow through on decisions to stop taking the drug.
Factors that increase vulnerability to addiction include family history (presumably through heritability and child-rearing practices), early exposure to drug use (adolescence is among the periods of greatest vulnerability to addiction), exposure to high-risk environments, and certain mental illnesses (e.g., mood disorders, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, psychoses, and anxiety disorders). Susceptibility to addiction differs because people differ in their vulnerability to various genetic, environment and developmental factors.
Awareness of individual and social risk factors and the identification of early substance-use problems make it possible to tailor prevention strategies to the patient. When prevention has failed and there is a need for treatment, research based on the brain disease model of addiction has shown that medical treatment can help to restore health function in affected brain circuitry and lead to improvements in behavior.
Although it is too soon to evaluate the effect of the MHPAEA and the Affordable Care Act, there appears to be increased enrollment and care delivery among patients with substance-use disorders and an overall reduction in spending on emergency departments visits and hospital stays in three states that were initially reviewed. 
Important Points:
Despite reports of benefits to the public from practices and policies generated by research based on the brain disease model of addiction, mobilizing support for further research will require the public to become better educated about the genetic, age-related, and environmental susceptibilities to addiction as they relate to structural and functional changes in the brain. If early voluntary drug use goes undetected and unchecked, the resulting changes in the brain can ultimately erode a person's ability to control the impulse to take addictive drugs."

Pick Up Your Crazy Heart

"And this ain't no place for the weary kind
This ain't no place to lose your mind
This ain't no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try"

I watched the movie, "Crazy Heart" last night. Can I just say, "Wow."

There is one scene in the movie where Jeff Bridges' character, Bad Blake, rushes off the stage-he's a washed up country western singer playing in a bowling alley-to run to the alley to heave his guts into a trash can. My chest ached and my throat burned  as he heaved from what seemed to be the sour rotten depths of his bowels.

Oh how I remember that.

Poor guy.

But then he fishes his sunglasses out of the vomit and returns to the stage, and heaves himself back up there and he finishes the set and I thought, "Gawd, drinking makes living so damn hard."

Oh how I remember that too. How for the last ten years of my drinking I felt like I was continually pulling myself out of a dark alleyway to pull myself back up on stage and go through the motions of my life. And not loving one single minute of it.

Not to give away the ending, in case you haven't watched it, but the movie showcases just what Sober Mummy said so beautifully in her post, One Year Sober yesterday (A must read for anyone who is on this winding path, but, then, all of her posts are a must read.).  It also illustrates  the intended endpoint of my last blog, Plugging Along, even though I never got around to making it.

That is, you cannot know what finally quitting for good will bring you, but be assured that all the things you are meant to have will be so much easier to achieve.  You cannot see what is important, until booze is no longer the most important thing in your life.

Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try. Your life is waiting for you.

Praying Big

I was blessed to spend sometime, however short, with my siblings this Christmas. At one point in the evening, my sister whipped out her phone and started scrolling through her pictures. We all know this is inevitable, in fact,  we often see this as permission to whip out our own phone and start scrolling through the pics of our grandkids and, kids as we regal our victims with their accomplishments. The twenty first century's version of the dreaded yearly Christmas letter.

My sister has no children or grandchildren.

"This is the ring, I'm going to get," she said. "And here is my coat. And this is my new house."

I tried to nod appreciatively but I'm sure she noticed the judgmental glint in my eye.

"I pray big," she said unabashedly.

I bit off my urge to inform her that she was praying for the wrong things. You're supposed to put others' needs before your own, Kathleen Ann. You should pray for peace or an end to hunger, not 5 carat rings and six car garages.

I was also blessed this Christmas to spend time with all of my own kids and grandkids. At one point, my three year old granddaughter twirled into the kitchen of my oldest son's house where I'd been imprisoned for four days.

"Grandma," she chirped. "Come play with me."

"I will Attie-bug, as soon as I'm done here," I assured her, as I scrubbed or stirred yet another pot.

She stuck out her lower lip and I refrained from informing her a rooster was going to come shit on it, as her great-grandmother Davis would have warned her.

"But I want you to come play now," she wheedled.

"Atalie-Jolene Davis, the world does not revolve around you," I informed her instead.

"Oh yes, it does," she assured me as she twirled back out of the room.

I shook my head. She'd learn soon enough, I thought. But then I thought, I hope she doesn't and why should she?  Her world should revolve around her.  She should always be the sun that lights up the world of all the other beings that wonder into her orbit. She should never rely on other people or other things to provide the light in her life

My world should revolve around me, too, I realized. It always should have. Instead I let others needs and booze and my own belief that I shouldn't outshine others suck up all the fire I had in me until there was nothing left but ash. Or so it seemed. But underneath all that gray ash an ember burned and once the ash was swept away and it was exposed and allowed to breathe in again, it alighted.  And once more there was light in my life. My light. 

It's up to me to keep it lit and be deserving of all the good things that venture into my orbit. Whether they be twirling granddaughters, grandsons that still like to hug their grandma, sons that think I'm humorous as all hell and the best cook in the world, a husband that thinks his world revolves around me (and it does), or five carat rings and winning lottery tickets.

So I sat down this morning to pray big, too. But then I realized my biggest prayers had been answered already. I am sober. I have my family back the way I want them. I am loved. I love myself.

 I can now pray for smaller things, it is a luxury that sobriety has granted me. 

So I'm praying for a sprawling old cabin with a big trestle table in the middle of the main room, long, benches on each side and a big stone fireplace that takes up a whole wall of the room. I'm praying for rows of four poster beds with thread-bare, faded quilts piled on them and rag rugs strewn about the place, spaced just far enough apart that you have to hop a little in order to make it to the next one before your feet touch the cold planks of the wood floor. 

I'm dreaming of generations of twirling, twinkling stars circling around the sun that I am once more.

Falling Into Christmas

I subscribe to the WFS newletter and received this gem in my inbox this morning. I wished I would have received it earlier, before the madness of the holiday got in full swing, but it's not too late to salvage the most important and reverent days of this holiday. I think it interesting that Jean (Jean Kirkpatrick died in 2000 and this was taken from the WFS archives) says we should use our painful memories to bring us the joy that we sought so long while drinking. But it is so true, those painful, excruciating memories are so often the only things standing between me and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I love also that she describes herself as someone that fell into Christmas trees, she's my kind of gal.  If anyone of you would like information about how to subscribe to the WFS newletter, I'm your gal. 

Now, how about we quit making new painful memories and start repurposing those old ones? Love you guys!

Christmas Cheers?Christmas Blues?

Jean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.

      This is the time of year for families, for relationships, for friendships to get together.  It is also a time of merriment.  But, most of all, it is a time of worship for a large part of the world.  Yet this is so often muted or forgotten in the mad pace of the Holiday Season.

      This is also the time of year when it seems as if the whole world is drinking.  Every time I turn around, someone is suggesting I have a drink.  Everywhere I go I see bottles of liquor, wine and beer.  Everyone seems to be drinking or talking about drinking.  Where was all of this free-flowing alcohol when I was drinking?  Did it flow as freely then and I missed it?  Or maybe I was the one drinking it without knowing it?  That’s possible!

      And all this leads me to ask, why do Americans celebrate this holiest of all periods with alcohol, alcohol, alcohol?

      Every Holiday Season I am reminded of those many terrible years when I put so many persons through hell, myself included.  I can remember, even now so many years later, the shakes, the hangovers, the remorse, the guilt, and the empty promises.  “No, I'll NEVER do it again.  I’m so sorry I ruined your Holiday,” I said, as I wondered where I’d get the money to get a drink to recover.  Or who I would visit to get the drinks I needed, and craved, and lied for.

      Oh, I thought it was so hilarious to help friends trim their Christmas trees and then fall into them accidentally because I was drunk.  That was funny... wasn’t it?  Now, all these years later, I feel disgust and pity for that drunken woman who was a disgrace to herself and to any who knew her.  I also feel great compassion, for there will be so many like her this year... next year... and all the years to follow.

      There is little humor connected to a drunken woman, yet I let myself be conned into thinking that I was the life of the party.  Never did I see that I was the fool of the party, that my actions were simply indefensible on any other grounds than that I was sick in body, mind, and spirit.  Yet that still did not, nor does not, take away the ill feeling, the sadness, the unhappiness I caused so many others.

      These musings of mine do not much help those of you who are still suffering during this Season.  I want to help you, for I feel great compassion toward, and for, those of you who wish the Holidays were over because of the temptations that surround you.  And I feel even more compassion for those of you who are unaware of the temptation that you might so innocently succumb to.  “Awe come on, just have one.  It won’t hurt you.  And, anyway, you can’t be the only one without a drink to toast the Season, can you?”  Oh, yes you can.

      Although this Season is tough for you, never let yourself be conned into believing there is nothing you can do.

      There is a great deal you can do.  There are symptoms we can observe and then take actions to counter them.  If we are edgy, or feel uneasy, or are ill-tempered, or angry often, or are depressed more than ever, or fatigued, or eating when not hungry, or very nervous, or generally out-of-sorts, now is the time to examine these emotions very carefully.  These feelings oftentimes mask our deeper subconscious feeling of wanting to drink.  We feel left out, not one of the crowd, sometimes we even feel rejected, but we don’t permit ourselves to know that we are reacting in sublimated ways.

      Early in the Holiday Season it is advisable for all of us to review our feelings about drinking and about all of the alcohol flowing around us.  Are we feeling good about ourselves or do we feel, that at any moment, we will ‘slip,’ let temptation overcome us?  Are we able to think clearly and realistically about our terrible days of drinking during other Holiday Seasons and now feeling true happiness for our sobriety and our good physical feelings, to say nothing about our mental and spiritual feelings?

      Oftentimes the most effective deterrent to our ever drinking again is the way we are able to remember the sad, and terrible, and awful, and unhappy, and sometimes, tragic times of years gone by.  These painful memories should help us to feel the happiness and joy we should be celebrating now.

      Those days of endless pain and constant recurring remorse are over, gone forever.  Now, this Season, we are able to feel good about ourselves.  We know that we are in charge of ourselves and our actions.  No one in this world can make any of us drink... only we can do that.  Now is the time to know, beyond any shadow of a lingering doubt, that we are alcoholic persons who cannot drink for physiological reasons.  We have a disease that is treatable and we are doing just that.

      Today, during this Holiday Season, we take charge of ourselves and know the truest joy and happiness in this Season.  We are confident about ourselves, and we know that we are truly blessed in our ability to handle ourselves.

My VACI

I always forget how busy this time of year is for me down here in Mexico. I'm running around like a crazy woman with the other "Elves" trying to make a lot of last minute jingle to buy toys for our kids down here. The toy drive was the first life line thrown to me when I was trying to get to shore while drowining in an ocean of booze.  It became my VACI, or Vital Absorbing Creative Interest as SMART Recovery calls it. I call it the first thing I fell in love with more than booze.  I wish I could say it happened on first sight and that the moment I was put in charge of providing a little Christmas joy to 800+ kids, I threw away the bottle, but it never happens that way. I stumbled through the first couple of years and a couple of drunk fiasco fundraisers before I finally chose the kids over the bottle. This Christmas will be my fifth sober Christmas.

An extra two hundred, or so, special needs kids landed in our laps a week ago and I've been scrambling to find funds for their toys. Luckily I had three secret Santas step forward immediately to cover the cost of their toys. It's funny down here. If someone stood up and said, "I hate kids" they'd get understanding nods even though most people don't hate kids. However, if I stood up and said, "I hate dogs!" I'd be stoned at the village square at midnight, then burned as a witch. Dogs win out over kids every time.

We spent yesterday down in the hot bowels of Centro Merida bargaining for toys in sweltering upstairs toy departments.  If you ever want proof that cold molecules are heavier than warm molecules, come to Merida and go upstairs in one of the cramped, clear a shelf every time you turn around with your wrecking ball of a purse, shop.  Then stay up there, slipping around on your own sweat, for three or four hours while the owner and his "elves" run around to the other fifty shops he owns trying to find five hundred identical toys because we've learned over the years that having a variety of toys can incite a riot among blood thirsty parents. Believe me, all the air conditioning stays downstairs.

Why do I continue to do it?  Our little village is definitely more prosperous than when I started coming here seven years ago and most parents can now buy toys for their kids because of the jobs that the growing expat community has brought. (BTW, before we get in a conversation that I've had way too often with the Grinches down here, Santa Claus had come to Mexico way before I got here, and our kids had to wonder why he was leaving them off his list.) But there are still a handful of kids that are very poor and it is that handful that I try to remember when I am so doggone sick of doing this.  I think of a little boy or girl that has waited and dreamed all year long for the night that they get a toy, just like every other kid in the village.

Oh yeah, it also keeps me sober.

So this started out as a whiny post about why I'm too friggin' drained to post lately, because we all know how strenuous lifting fingers up and down on a keyboard can be, but as usual, once I start complaining, I build momentum, like a fart with a ferocious tail-wind..

Abs Chat Tonight!

Abs Chat is focused on abstaining from alcohol—on a permanent basis,
long-term, or even for a shorter period of time (like a 30!).
Everyone is welcome to attend, and to participate, but we won't be
discussing moderation techniques or plans. For discussions of
moderate drinking, we invite you to participate in the Monday Night
Book Chat or the Tuesday Night Online Meeting.
So if you're abstaining, planning to, curious about it, wondering
whether it would be a good idea, or just want to hang out for sober
fun, stop by!
See you there! http://www.moderation. org/chat/

** PLEASE NOTE: Abs Chat will be held in the Abs Chatroom. When
logging in, use the drop-down box to select MM_Abs_Chat. If you wind
up in the wrong room, you can move between rooms by clicking on the
room list to the right of the chatroom screen. **

Birdhouses

For years I've wanted to get all of my grandkids to paint birdhouses for me.  I had this vision that we'd hang them on scattered trees throughout our property, each with their name and date painted in a childish scrawl on the bottom.  I could see us walking hand in hand through the forest every year looking for their particular birdhouse to see if some lucky bird had made it a home.  I saw generations of  those tiny birdhouses everywhere, I practiced gazing with appropriate wonder-filled eyes at every artful avian domain presented to me by pudgy paint spattered hands.  I linked a lineage of marshmallow and Hershey bar sticky fingers with  mine as we traipsed around mapping the colorful mini domiciles.

"Your daddy painted that one when he was your age," I imagined myself saying.

That was my dream.

This year I had the chance to start building that dream when two of my grandsons came to stay.  I was giddy as I strolled the aisles at Hobby Lobby picking out paint and cute little wood appliques.

Finally the big day came, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky.  I spread a big square of plastic sheeting on the ground under the trees,  arranged all the little pots of paint and found some old t-shirts for my grandsons to wear. The lucky birds swooped overhead to oversee the process.

 I settled in next to my grandsons to share in their delight as they lost themselves in creative abandon.

"Go crazy," I said, fluttering my hands.  "Use as many colors as you want."

Five minutes later:

"I'm done," the seven year old said, as he threw his paint brush down. "I'm going to go throw rocks in the river."

I looked at his birdhouse.  I tried to summon up my wonder-filled eyes.  It was green.  All green.  No cute little flowers or butterflies painted in florescent pinks and purples or Jackson Pollack-like explosions of paint.  Just green.

"Don't you want to add some more color?" I asked.  "We won't even be able to find this among the trees."

"Nope," he said. "I like green."'

"I done, too," the three year old said. "Let's go throw rocks."

At least his was two colors.  Orange and green.

Those were the ugliest damn birdhouses I'd ever seen.  I thought about adding some little flowers and butterflies of my own, but that would have defeated the purpose.  I didn't want to walk through the forest in ten years and say, "Look at that pretty little birdhouse I painted for you."  I wanted them to see what they had painted.  I wanted them to be proud of it. 

 I wanted them to remember this day with fond memories.

So I let them go throw rocks.  Maybe next time I'll let them shoot paint balls at their birdhouses.  Not my dream, but probably closer to theirs.

I wander through the blogs on a daily basis.  I read the comments, especially on the blogs written by bloggers caught in the struggles of early sobriety. I hear the "want this so bad for you " in the replys of all of us that have been there, that made it through.  We want so bad to paint their birdhouses for them. To paint neat rows of tulips and bees happily buzzing about.  We want to see a nest being built twig by twig and momma and daddy birds teaching their young to fly.  We want to walk with them a year or ten from now and look up and point and say, "See how far you've come?  We knew you could do it."

But we can't.

All we can do is let them keep throwing rocks in the stream.  All those endless rocks that make a big splash and then sink beneath the water.  All we can do is sit and wait for them to come back from  the bank of that tumbling river and settle underneath the trees with us and pick up their brushes and make their own beautiful life.

All we can do is keep making our life more beautiful day by day for them to see.   To pull them back from the river.

Treasure Hunting

I spent all day yesterday treasure hunting.  No, I did not go down in the depths of some cave with a miner's lamp and pick and shovel thrown over my shoulder, nor did I strap on a scuba tank.  I did it as any logical couch potato, big dreamer would, with notebook and pen in hand and laptop on my lap, of course.

I spent a bright sunny June Saturday, locked in the Ali Baba treasure cave of my mind, as I plotted and mapped out the clues to Forest Fen's Treasure.  Instead of spending the day out cleaning out my flowerbeds, or going for a hike, or  finishing the Damn Never-To-Be-Finished- Book, (from here on out to be referred to as DNTBFB which could also stand for DadNabitTurkeyBastingFuggingBook, ) which would surely give me more likely and immediate rewards, I went chasing after a dream that thousands of others have chased and still haven't caught.  And they've been chasing that treasure for years.  What chance do I have?

As good a chance as they do.

A month ago I sent in a contest entry to win a 200 year old Inn in Maine. (Were any of you fellow bloggers my competition?)  I dreamed of being the caretaker of  that old Inn.  Taking yearly jaunts out into the woods on a snowy December day with my guests towing sleds behind them, (think Currier and Ives).  Cutting down the perfect tree, and then decorating it later from boxes of antique ornaments hauled down from the attic as we drank hot cider and listened to Christmas Carols.  I planned to let my littlest guests set up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk in the summer, I'd bake the cookies.  I dreamed of my granddaughter receiving her first kiss on those steps, of handing her over the keys some day.  Of her dragging the boxes of ornaments down from the attic.  Squeezing the lemons.  Baking the cookies.

I didn't win.

But that's okay.

I enjoyed richness  of my far flung dreams.

Funny how quitting drinking is so much like a treasure hunt.  I didn't envision it that way, especially in the beginning.  When I was so sick.  My days burdensome.  My nights dreamless.  I wasn't interested in treasure seeking.  All I wanted to do was escape the dungeon I was trapped in.   I didn't know there were riches waiting for me,  If I had, maybe I would have tried to escape earlier.  Maybe I would have sat and plotted and mapped and felt my heart flutter back to life as I imagined all the glittering jewels waiting for me to find them.  Instead of dwelling on my loss of drinking with all of it's false shine.  Fool's gold.

I wished I would have dreamed of trips into the snowy woods, lemonade stands, my granddaughter's first kiss, a best selling DNTBFB.  I wished I would have wool gathered and taken flights of whimsy. Gone all starry-eyed and obsessed, just thinking about all those gems laying at my feet.

I wish I hadn't been daunted by the numbers of people that had searched for the same treasure for years and failed.  Because, you know what?  Their failures didn't matter.  All that mattered was that I dreamed big enough and held on to the dream long enough to find the treasure.  No matter the disappointments.  No matter the misread clues.  The wrong turns.  The rock slides and washouts.

All that mattered is that if I kept dreaming and searching, I would find the treasure.

And I did.  And that treasure chest held so many more riches than rubies and gold.  It housed more bounty than that 200 year old inn could hold.

The End!

P.S.  If you are one of those in the early days of sobriety, one of those who are suffering with mourning or sickness, start plotting and start searching.  Get out a piece of paper and draw yourself a map.  What treasures do you want to find or retrieve?  Map out how you're going to get there.  Have some relationships you want to mend? Put them on the map.  Have some health or spiritual goals,  Mark them with an X.  Carry the map with you at all times.

Good Luck!

P.P..S.  Yes, I have pinpointed exactly where Fenn's treasure is give or take a hundred miles or so, so there's no reason for the rest of you to even look.