Simple Saturdays

Ahhhh...it's been a long day! Nothing really extreme going on, just a long day. Those things happen from time to time... Having to face the fact that I am totally addicted to eating Good&Plentys while I am on the computer at night. I love those things! And before I know it, I've eaten the whole box. Guess I have to stop buying them...I love anything black licorice... Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Morning meeting, 4:30 meeting to see a friend pick up his 3 year coin, and then possibly another nighttime meeting. Have a sponsling at the house this weekend. She needs some good old fashioned dunking into meetings while she has 3 days off. We're also meeting a new sponsling I have just agreed to take on...a sweet young gay man who is having a time of it. I generally adhere to the women with women unspoken spoken rule. But this boy is about as female a female gets, except for his paraphenalia. lol Anyway, he asked me and I agreed. We'll meet at the meeting tomorrow evening. I've been talking with him on the phone awhile now....his last sponsor (and first sponsor) is unavailable to him now, due to health problems. SO, we'll give it a whirl and see how it goes. As always, I am quite sure that God has a plan. I was thinking today of the blessings in my life. A friend has an underage daughter who flipped a car with 3 passengers in it, driving while drunk. The law is throwing the book at her. This kid has been getting into scrapes and brushes with the law, and getting her cute little butt bailed out over and over. Not this time. I told her mother, this is a mixed blessing. She will probably lose her license forever this time...3 counts of drunk driving, one Class 4 felony, and reckless endangerment. She is pretty beat up as well, a broken collarbone and bruises and sprains. God bless all the little drunks out there that still think they are 10 ft tall and bulletproof! 2 of the kids are still hospitalized, 1 has been released. Luckily, no one was killed. The folks who live back behind us, across the pond, have a son 25 who was driving drunk and killed someone. He is in prison and will be there for a long time. And for the rest of his life he will have to live with that woman's death on his hands. The miracle is that of the thousands of times I was driving while intoxicated, I never hurt or killed anyone. Well, I hurt myself a few times, but no one else. And here's the thing: I never ever would hurt another human being. But over and over again, without even considering the possibilities, I got behind the wheel of a car thinking I was okay to drive. And I'm sure that both of these kids above feel the same way. But it's too late now for them both. There are commercials on the radio here that say "Buzz driving IS drunk driving." Emphasizing that if you just had a couple to give you that buzz, you are over the legal limit to drive. It says something like: It's easy too tell when you've had way too much to drink. But not so easy when you just had a few and are barely buzzed. The legal limit for drinking and driving is a lot lower than you think. Maybe it'll make some of these kids think. Hey--it could happen... I'm grateful to have a kid that's sober and clean. I'm blessed to be sober myself. I appreciate the fact that I only have to stay sober today. I am grateful for all those "scouts"...the ones coming back in with all the arrows in their backs, telling me that it hasn't gotten any better out there. I'm really really grateful that I don't have to be one of them. I'm blessed to be a sober mom and wife and sister and aunt. I have a niece who seems to be training for her seat in AA these days. I'll be here to open the door for her. Life's a dance....when you know the Steps! Namaste.

Fascinating Fridays

It's a good day when you haven't had to use booze as your core solution to all your problems. I am one of those people who, in the past, would do anything to change the way I felt, because I was never okay. I would pour copious amounts of booze into this hole in my face, take any and every drug imaginable, move, sleep my way across the country, shave my head...you name it and I have done it. And mostly it would work for a little while. But in the end I always wound up back at ground zero...wondering how I was going to make it through my life.

And then the earth opened up and I was swallowed whole by my disease. The bottom fell out. I hit the wall. I was face down in the dirt, and I was in that horrible place where nothing worked anymore and nothing made me feel better. I couldn't stop using drugs and alcohol and I couldn't keep on using them either.

And that was when my Creator sent a guy into my life that helped me shift the paradigm. If it wasn't for him, heaven only knows where I would be today, or IF I would be today. (My mother died of this disease when she was 1 year younger than I am today). Anyway, I have a shrine in my heart for this guy that saved me. And he knows he saved me, or helped save me, because when I was 2 years sober, I wrote him a letter thanking him for the part he played. His name was Officer Reynolds, and he worked for the California Highway Patrol. He's the guy that arrested me and then broke a bunch of rules, like not handcuffing me and letting me ride in the front seat with him down to the police station. He sat with me in the holding cell while I waited for them to come and fingerprint me. He talked to me about this organization called AA and that they helped a lot of people like me. He told me that since this was my first offense, the judge would probably make me go to some meetings and pay a big fine. He told me that I could be okay, and that I could find a way to live without having to be drunk all the time.

I don't know what got me to thinking about Officer Reynolds today. I don't know why I got one of the nicer cops that night. I was a sloppy , stupid, obnoxious drunk. There's more to this story, but it's enough to know that I have never forgotten him or his face or his name in over 20 years.

I was thinking about how blessed I am to be sober today. To have a relationship with my Higher Power. To have friends that I can call when I am experiencing that dark night of the soul. To have a place to go where people know me and help me in ways I would never have imagined.

The Elegant Blessings of a sober productive life...full to the brim with love and self respect and compassion. It doesn't get any better than this....