Ten Things You Gotta Love About Sobriety

The cap'n has been buzzing around all morning.

 Busy, Busy Bee!

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

I want to swat him, because I'm still all fuzzy headed and laying about in bed and just spent 45 minutes looking up Foghorn Leghorn quotes so I could write something really snappy to one of my friends on the Moderation Management List.  I came up, I say, I came up with nothing, so I wasted, I say, wasted 45 freakin' minutes!!  Why in the hell did I go looking to Foghorn Leghorn for inspiration this morning?

"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"  Goes the cap'n.

"It's amazing what you can get done when you're not hungover," says he.

"Preachin' to the choir," says I.  (And what the fruck do you think I've been trying to tell you for the last three years. But, oh yeah, I forgot, you were never hungover.  That's what you kept telling me anyway.  I guess now you know the difference)

I guess you've figured out that the cap'n is behavin' lately (a week) and that we must have had a "come to Jesus" meeting. (Yes, we did).  But more about that later.  He's decided to "essentially" quit drinking. (Can I get a collective eye roll on that?).  But he's doing pretty good so far.

But..

But..

But...

Buzz!

Buzz!

Buzz!

He's out there digging up Coconut Trees and I'm still laying in bed.

He reminds me of what those first sober mornings felt like.

Like a Fucking Miracle.

And then I wandered over to Mrs. D's Blog this morning between my Foghorn Leghorn expeditions, and she's yammering away, lah-di-dah, zippity do-dah, and all that shit, about why she loves sobriety. 

And I said, "Fuck it, I say, fuck it, if you can't beat'em you might as well join 'em. Now listen up, ya hear, listen up."

Why I Love Sobriety:

1.)  I'm still alive.

2.)  I'm laying in bed all fuzzy headed and lazy and I can't blame drinking.  I haven't been able to         blame my drinking for anything for almost 3 whole years.

3.)  I'm a damn inspiration.  Yep, I can't deny it, I am.

4.)  There are now people who know me who never saw me drunk, they don't even know that I used to drink.  They just think I'm an uptight sober person.  Hallelujah!

5.)  I remember every single thing that happened last night.

6.)  I haven't vomited in almost 3 years, which means I haven't had to look at, smell, or clean up vomit in 3 years.

(The cap'n just reported that he's already dug up 9 Coco Trees.  He's a regular Johnny Coconut Tree)

7.)  Sober sex.  It's just easier, quicker and cleaner and a lot less theatric.  (Addition to today's "To Do" List:  Burn all those old videos.)

8.)  I can make plans for later on tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, Christmas...because I can depend on me to be present and accountable.

9.)  I'm no longer worried about qualifying for the liver transplant list.

Drum Rollllllllllllll!!!!!!!

10.)  I love myself and life again, with all of our foibles, ups and downs, ins and outs, darks and lights, hards and easy's, goods and bads, happy and sads.  I love that I feel it and live it.

Thank you, I say, thank you, God!

Hoppy Hoppy Day

Today marks two years of sobriety for me and as I sat down with my rosary this morning I said thank you for the gifts I've been given in the last two years, a different gift for every bead. 54 in all and I could have kept going.  I won't bore you with the whole list, instead I'll just name one gift for each year of sobriety.

STRENGTH:
Remember that was my word for this year?  Today on my fb page I announced to the world, my world that is, that I have been sober for two years.  Funny how something that was so shameful has become such a source of pride for me. (The return of self-Pride was another gift I thanked the heavens for this morning, but I promised I wouldn't go on and on about all the gifts sobriety has handed me.  Again.)  I've received over 30 responses to my fb post this morning and 60-some likes.  I'm not bragging, but the fact that so many people took the time to say congratulations blew me away...and made me cry.  A few of them posted about how strong I am, one guy that I've known since grade school said, "That a girl! Congratulations, but it's not really surprising, you've always been able to achieve anything you set your mind to."

See, that's what I just couldn't understand all those years, it's what so many people don't understand..  I'd always been able to do what I needed to do, I'd always been the strong one that other people relied on.  Why the hell couldn't I control my drinking? I just wasn't trying hard enough.  I was weak.  And then I prayed for strength and it came when I had nothing left.  My own strength was never enough.  So thank you, God, and everyone else up there who pooled enough strength together to get me sober.  I owe you. I promise I won't waste it.

On to the next gift:

 I remember a day  four years ago when I had just moved to Chelem.  I thought Chelem was going to be the answer, my new life.  I was off the damn boat and nobody knew me, I could start all over.  But on this day, I found myself, yet again, wretched and hungover and so thoroughly disgusted with myself that I couldn't show my face.  My new housekeeper, Gabi and her father Felix, were at our house that day working, tip-toeing and speaking in hushed voices, I'm sure about their new employer who was laying out on the porch and couldn't even come in and talk to them.  "Who is this woman?", I imagined them asking each other. "Just another drunk gringo who thinks she is too good to talk to us?"   I wanted to tell them, "No, I'm not like that, this isn't the real me."  But it was.

Since then Gabi and I have grown to be very close friends and confidants, she knows all about my drinking and, now, my not drinking.  Felix, however, has remained reserved.  He meets us at our casa every time we return from up north and he always gives me a stiff and awkward hug, but he never gives me the kiss on the cheek that is customary down here.

Until last weekend.

Last weekend, the cap'n and I wandered across the highway to the little tienda that our neighbor Nancy runs.  Felix and his wife, Christina, were sitting on the verandah having a beer with Nancy and they asked the cap'n and I to join them.  The three of them had obviously had one or two already and were wearing the happy countenances of people that were finished with their work week and were enjoying a couple of beers with good friends.  We were honored that they asked us to sit down.  I sat sipping my coke-lite, as we all communicated via broken shards of language and hand gestures and laughter.  At one point, Christina, Felix's wife and Gabi's mother, turned to Nancy and said something about me.  I could catch that she was telling Nancy something that Gabi had said about me.  I look at Nancy, who was doing a comical job of playing translator for our little group, I haven't understood a word of her English in five years, and she said, "Christina say, that Gabi say, that Mary esta always..".at this point she took the index fingers of each of her hands and drew the corners of her lips up in a smile, "Hoppy! Hoppy!"

So Hoppiness and Strength are the two greatest gifts that sobriety has given me.

What more can a girl ask for?

P.S. Felix kissed me on both cheeks when I left that night. Just the icing on the cake.

Moore Prayers

Life asked Death,

Why do people love me,

But hate you?

Death replied,

Because you are a beautiful lie,

And I am a painful truth.

One day when I was in kindergarten, I walked home from school to find a huge, gaping hole in our backyard.  My dad had decided to dig a storm cellar because my older sister was deathly afraid of storms and went into hysterics every time the tornado sirens would howl.  He thought having that hole under our back porch would calm her fears.  It did better than that, it scared off all the tornadoes.  Never in all the following years did we ever have to seek shelter from a tornado in that cellar. When I was young, I'd head down there with all my favorite stuffed toys, and some cheese and crackers every time the tornado watch ticker came across the bottom of the tv screen.  It was a lark.

I no longer consider tornadoes a lark.

 

 Not after Hoisington, Greensburg, Joplin, Moore x 2....

 

Not after I think of scared little kids who were counting down the hours until summer vacation, thinking of swimming pools and barbecues and tee-ball, huddled shoulder to shaking shoulder in a hallway.

 

I can't think of that without bursting into tears.  A few more days and school would have been out.  

 

Why?

My daughter-in-law went in for her scans today.  They saw something.

 

Why?

Tonight I want to be in a bar with a bunch of others, our eyes peeled to the TV watching news reports of the tornadoes and motioning to the bartender to keep them coming until we forget why we're there.  I want to drink until I no longer care why.  I really do.

But God and I decided two years ago that now was the time I needed to be sober, I needed to be STRONGER.

I don't know why.  I am afraid of what may be coming. 

But I will stay strong and I will stay sober.

Because.