Sorry I haven't posted here in such a long time. A clean life is a busy life. And I have been blogging like crazy. I now have an online journal, a WordPress blog, and a blog on Blogger.com. Plus a MySpace blog. The online journal is only for NaNoWriMo. It's just around the corner, and I'm getting so excited! Most of the fiction I write will be on the Blogger site. I'm not going to list my sites here. All I can say is Google me, or send me a private message and I'll give you the web address. I've had 5 articles published on eHow.com, and all I can say is I owe all this to my Higher Power. If it weren't for my recovery, none of this would be happening. I still get impatient sometimes, like I want to be published now, but I know that if it is meant to be, it will happen and not in my time. 

I have been having some health problems, but still even with all that I still have found absolutely noexcuz2uz. My God bless and keep you, until next time....

Bear with me. This will be a long entry, and yes, it is going somewhere. So hang on, it's worth the ride.
I was visiting my father last Sunday, and this Father's Day I really tried to make it special for my dad. About two months ago he found out he has an aneurism in his aorta, and the doctor said it wasn't very big. They were just going to watch it for a while. Then last week he found out he has prostate cancer, and they were going to send him for a bone scan to see if the cancer had spread to his bones. He went to the oncologist yesterday, and he and his doctor decided together that the aneurism would have to be repaired before the prostate could be removed. The bone scan results aren't back yet. So needless to say my father will be going through alot in the near future, which is why I wanted to make this Father's Day a good one.
While my youngest daughter and I are visiting with him and my mother, I get a phone call. A friend in recovery asks me if I can take her to the emergency room because she was having chest pains. I told her I would be right on my way to pick her up to go to the hospital. This is an honest program, and to be honest, I was a little annoyed that I had to jump up and leave my dad on Father's Day under the circumstances. Don't get me wrong, I really care about this woman, and I consider her a good friend. On top of that, I was recently voted into a service position in my home group. So what better way to serve, right? If there's an addict in need, and they call on me, I try to help them to the best of my ability. And I'm really trying to cultivate some spirituality in my life these days. But this is my dad, my sick father, who may not get another Father's Day. He tells me to go, so I go. Reluctantly.
My daughter and I rush off to pick her up. I get her to the emergency room and the lobby is so packed with people there aren't any available seats for me or my daughter, so we wait in a nearby waiting room. Three and a half hours later my medication is about to wipe me out, and my friend is still waiting to see the doctor. I tell her that I need to go home, and if they discharge her to call me and I will pick her up and take her home. So I drove home. After I got there I piddled around for an hour or so making coffee for the next morning and such, waiting to see if she would call. When I didn't get a call by midnight I went to bed.
The next thing I know it's 8:30 the next morning, and my friend is calling to tell me that she was admitted into the hospital. We talk for a few minutes, and I tell her that I will be up there to see her in a few hours. She calls me back at 10:30 in a panic, and tells me that she is being transferred to a cardiac unit in a larger hospital in the next county. She says she is scared to death, something is wrong with her cardiac enzymes, and would I come sit with her until the ambulance gets there. I told her of course I would. Now I'm the one that's scared. The hospital she is being transferred to is the same hospital in which two of my husbands died.
I get to the hospital and sit with her for a few hours, and I start getting antsy. I can't stay. I tell her to call me when they arrive to transfer her, and call me again when she gets to the other hospital. And in the meantime I am feeling so many emotions. Concern for her, fear that when she is transferred she'll die too, just so many different feelings are going through me.
She calls me when she gets settled in her room, and everything is okay. I talk to her again before I go to bed that night, and tell her I love her, and to call me when she wakes up in the morning.
That night I dreamed I relapsed. In my dream I was panicking because I had lost my service position, let my home group down, lost all that I had worked so hard for since going to rehab. I had let my kids down, and my parents, too. My father. Then in the dream my husband's face suddenly materializes before my eyes, and he's smiling. Toney looked so healthy, just like he did when we first started dating. And he looked at peace. And in the midst of my dream I have a lucid moment. I know it's just a dream. I look at him with my mouth hanging open and my eyes all wide. And at that moment my husband starts laughing, and I start laughing with him. And then I wake up. I'm coherent and I'm not freaked out like I usually am when I have using dreams, thinking I have to go to a meeting and pick up a white keytag. Then it crosses my mind as kind of strange that I've only dreamed about Toney once since he died, and that was months ago. Why again now? Maybe because I had been to the hospital. While I'm thinking about this I doze back off to sleep. 
At 7:30 the next morning my phone rings, and my friend is in a panic. Again. She will be undergoing a cardiac catheter to check for a blockage later on that day, and wants me to come and sit with her. Now I'm the one in a panic, but I don't let her know that. I haven't been in that hospital since my last husband died nine months ago, and I don't want to start darkening the door now. I calmly tell her that I will go by her house and pick up some things for her, and I'll be there sometime after noon. I hang up the phone wondering why in the hell did I have to go back in that hospital today of all days. I had to drive my daughter to work. I had laundry to do. I needed to go by my job and take a medical release to my benefits coordinator. I had scheduled a meeting for 4pm at a local coffee shop I had always wanted to visit with a friend I met in rehab, and I really missed her. And most importantly, a friend in my home group was speaking at 6:15 that evening at a nearby rehab facility, and I wanted to be there to show her my support. More home group members were going, why couldn't I go? On and on I whined to my Higher Power, with my "why me, my shit is more important" attitude.
Then disease bitch took over. I could do this. I could do all of these things. I was going to do all of these things or die trying. Shut up, I tell her. I get my daughter up and take her to work. On the way home I'm trying to figure out how to do this, and come up with nothing. I collapse on the bed. I can hear recovery woman in my head telling disease bitch it can't be done. I get tired of them yammering back and forth, and go to sleep.
Disease bitch wakes me up at 2pm trying to rush me. I calmly get in the shower and dress, while the whole time she is in my head telling me hurry up, you can do this. I go by my friend's house and pick up some things for her, and hit the interstate. Hurry, hurry. It's 3pm. I call my rehab friend and tell her I'll be about 30 minutes late to the coffeehouse, but I'll be there.
I get to the hospital, and park in the parking garage. I remember driving around in that garage so many times looking for a parking spot last year. Every day for 13 days. That's how long my husband lived after the transfer to this hospital from the one I had just visited yesterday. And he had only been in that one two weeks. That's how fast he went. From home to one hospital, then to another hospital, and then to the cemetery, all in less than 5 weeks.
I walk in the lobby and see the information desk, remembering the night my husband passed away. When the family arrived at the hospital the receptionist insisted we needed nametags to be in the hospital after visiting hours. The absurdity of that woman screeching about a nametag while I'm steady walking down the corridor, on my way to view my husband's body. I halfway smiled to myself and kept walking. But it wasn't funny that awful night nine months ago when my sister-in-law told the receptionist that both she and the nametag could go to hell.
I passed the canteen, remembering the innumerable cups of coffee that I drank to help kick in my d.o.c., so I could stay awake at the hospital and on my job where I worked 12 hour shifts when I wasn't at my husband's bedside.
I got on the elevator and disease bitch is still yelling for me to hurry up. I make it to my friend's room and she is awake, already back from the procedure. And she is glad to see me. I tell her about my appointment with my rehab friend. She says that it's okay, she will probably be going home within the next two hours anyway. No speaker meeting now disease bitch says in my head. We talk for a few minutes, and I tell her that I'm not going home without her. I read her a poem that I had written a few days before. Hurry up! I tell her I have to run, and I promise I won't be gone very long, just long enough to take the letter by my job, and go to the coffeehouse and meet my friend. Then I'll be back to pick her up and take her home.
As I leave her room, disease bitch says why don't you go see the room where Toney died? In a flash Toney's voice is in my head, telling disease bitch why should she go there? I'm not there anymore. And I smile to myself. He's not. He's nowhere near this hospital where he was in so much pain, suffering for almost two weeks with two collapsed lungs, struggling for every breath he took, then dying clean in a room with only his Higher Power at his bedside. I walked to the car, wishing I could have given him an Infinity Medallion at his funeral. But I was still using then. Using anything and everything to numb the pain of losing yet another husband.
I dropped off the letter at work, and met my rehab friend at the coffeeshop. We chatted for a while. She offered to email me some of her photographs so I could write captions for them. When I return them they will be displayed in her online gallery. Not long ago she had been offered a trip to Europe to meet some gallery owners who wanted to display some of her work. She never got back in touch with them. I asked her why she hadn't responded to their inquiry, and she said she really didn't know. Call them, I told her. If they had offered to pay her airfare to Europe they must think her work was pretty awesome. I thought it was, and told her so. "Let's make a bargain", I said. If she would go to Europe and meet with the gallery owners, I would write a book. "Promise?", she asked. I said "Hell, yes!". She said she would go, I said I would write, and we shook on it. I made my way to the door while she went for a another chai tea, both of us promising to continue calling and sending e-mails to each other.
I got back on the interstate and headed back to the hospital to pick up my friend. Hurry, hurry! You can take her to the speaker meeting with you. She probably needs a meeting by now! It was six o'clock and disease bitch was not giving me any slack. Truth was, I thought I was the one who really needed a meeting, and I wasn't going to make one today. And neither was my recovery friend. Disease bitch wasn't going to get everything she wanted today. But I was going to get exactly what I needed. Disease bitch just didn't know it yet. And neither did I.
I got to the hospital and sat with my friend while the nurse got her discharge paperwork ready. She apologized for running me to death. And I told her thank you. She wanted to know why I was thanking her. I told her that this was the first day I had been in that hospital since Toney had died. She started apologizing again, and I shushed her. I told her how I was rushing most of the afternoon, trying to get this done and that done, trying to get disease bitch to that meeting so she would just shut up. But the fact was that I was right where I needed to be, sitting in the same hospital where I had lost Toney. I told her that I was finally getting some closure. Something that I couldn't get anywhere else, even if I took disease bitch to a million meetings. I could only get it sitting in that hospital, at that moment, with another recovering addict that thought the world of my addict husband. Tears welled up in my friend's eyes, and in mine.
On the way home my friend talked about the last time she saw my husband, which was about a year before I started dating him. At that time he appeared healthy. He knew he was sick, but no one else did except his Higher Power. It crossed my mind that if I had never started dating Toney, married Toney, and then buried Toney, I'd probably still be using today. He died and I tried to use until I died. But instead I hit bottom, and I hit hard. So in a way, Toney had come in and out of my life not so that I could die, but so I could recover. So that I would reach out for help. So I could learn how to live, just for today.
Disease bitch didn't open her mouth again that day. And just for today I still have absolutely noexcuz2uz. May God bless you and keep you, until next time........

The One Constant In Life is Change

Of all things experienced by all beings
The one constant in life is change.
We can't stop time, hit pause
And rewind back to regain
Those moments lost or thrown away
To the depths of the ocean when we
Were adrift alone in the sea of
Isolation.

Trying to find the shore and fighting
The wind and rain and waves
That washed over the sides of our ship
Named Condemned and the guilt
Engulfed us and we gasped for air
In water-filled lungs until we
Surrendered.

We opened our eyes to a bright
New world and saw for the first time
Ourselves and those around us were
Alive and breathing clean air and felt
The unshifting sand under our feet and
Found ourselves on the uncharted isle of
Recovery.

Keys were received that opened the locks
Named Freedom and Life and we knew
That second chances are given even
When they're not deserved but as
Gifts with no expectations of anything
In return but only one thing is desired
Gratitude.

This is the first poem I've written since my life's work was burned in 2004. Hope you like it. Peace, Helen.

I've always heard addicts share in meetings about falling off the pink cloud, or hitting the wall. I knew what they were talking about. But I never heard an addict share about how it felt. The confusion set in last Monday. I got lost driving down a stretch of interstate I've driven down hundreds of times in the last five years. I was on my way to therapy, and the next thing I know, I've passed my exit. I had to call the secretary and tell her I was going to be late. The confusion really sucks. I feel like my brain is a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces just won't fit. I forget names of people I know, even what I'm supposed to be doing at any given moment. Hell, I even forgot how to make coffee the other morning. My God, it's just  coffee. And it really got overwhelming when I was trying to cut the interior light on in the car, and it just wouldn't come on. I was tapping it, thinking the bulb had shot or something, until my daughter pointed out that the light won't come on until the doors of the car are open! I was almost in tears I was so frustrated.
This happened to me when I first entered the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. And I didn't know what the hell was going on. And I ended up picking up and staying out for six years. I almost didn't make it back in.
My counselor, my sponsor, and my home group is being so supportive. I couldn't deal with this without their help. I am getting educated on post acute withdrawals, and it just might be saving my life.
If you are reading this blog, and you don't feel comfortable in your own skin, you are confused, you don't know exactly what you are feeling, you are not interested in going to a meeting  (I didn't go for four days!), will you please, please, please pick up the phone and call someone. ANYONE. Call your sponsor, a fellow recovering addict, a counselor, the NA Hotline (1-800-239-5509), just call anyone who has a few 24 hours in the program. Please just don't use. Because you may not know it, but your disease is trying to blindside you. It's setting you up for relapse. I didn't know it either, but other recovering addicts did. And I'm so glad I didn't put on my "Everything is fine, I'm ok" mask when I went to therapy and to a meeting last Monday. Because everything certainly was not fine, and I sure as hell wasn't okay. It was supposed to be a book study, but I HAD to share how I was feeling. I was too uncomfortable not to. I didn't want to use, but I felt out of sorts like I did before when I relapsed in 2002. And they told me they had been there, and came out clean. I didn't last time. But with the help of my Higher Power and my recovery network, I'm gonna make it through this clean this time. Because when I feel like that, there's something about ME that I need to work on. And even though I might feel like I'm crazy as five bats in a belfry, I know that this too shall pass. And I might feel like crap, and I know this won't be that last time I feel like this, but I still have noexcuze2uz. Thanks for letting me share. May God bless you and keep you, until next time..........

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I'm not trying to live in the past, it just took me this long to process it so I could write about it. I got some things done around the house, and left to go to the store to buy some more cigarettes. I'm trying to cut down. Both my sponsor and my counselor don't want me to try quitting right now. So I check the mail, and there's a letter from my son. Finally! I've been waiting on it for over a week. But I can't read while driving, and my gut told me I'd want a cigarette while I read it. It's taken over two weeks of abstinence (18 days today, whoohoo!) for those gut feelings to come back, not to mention all the emotional pain I stuffed for years. But I listen to those gut feelings, yes ma'am I do. I get to the store, get the cigarettes, and get in the car and light one up. And then, the envelope, please. I rip it open, and start reading. And I don't like what I read. Another resident stole the stamps I gave him to use to write to me. Sure enough, I look at the envelope, and there's no stamp on it, just a postage meter stamp in red ink. Then he tells me about more than one resident slapping him, another is talking about having intercourse with my youngest daughter to my son and trying to read the letter (because my son is writing about him), and my son has to keep moving away from him so he can write, another is pulling his chair out from under him. By this time I'm getting upset, and glad I'm smoking. But then I read how my son is going to church, he wants to get baptised, and he's attending 12-Step meetings. So I feel a little better. But you know, I'm a mom, and I'm gonna worry no matter what. He's fifteen. He's still a kid. So I just put the letter back in the envelope and drive home. And on the way home I call my son's lawyer and leave him a message to please call me Monday at his convenience. I get home and go in the house, and guess what's on? "Forrest Gump". Now, don't get me wrong. I love Tom Hanks and this is one of my favorite movies. But the movie is at the part where Forrest and Jenny get married, and then the next thing you know, Jenny is dead. And if you've read my profile, you know that's not good. Not good at all. I just burst out crying. All the grief, the pain, the worry, all just comes pouring out of me. And I just let it come. I don't stuff it, and I don't run from it. I just let it come until there's nothing left. And then a thought runs through my head. It says, "I wish I was high". It stopped me dead in my tracks. And then it pissed me off. And when I get pissed off, it's not good. So I went outside, got the lawnmower from under the porch, cranked it up, and started cutting the grass. I mowed about three rows as fast as I could and worked up a good sweat. (I've got a big yard. It takes me about 3 hours to cut it). Then I cut the mower off and went on the porch and sat down to a big glass of my iced tea (it's the best!). And I called my sponsor. We talked for a few minutes, I told her what was going on with my son. She asked if I was okay, and I said yes. And truly I was. While I was mowing the grass, I had plenty to think about. Mowing around the tile that goes under my driveway requires concentration. Plus my mower is an old one but a good one, but I think the sparkplug is trying to foul out. While I was thinking about all this, and my son, the thought of using popped out of my head as fast as it popped in. We talked for a few more minutes, and I told her I was going to hang up and call my mother. And I did. And we had a very good conversation about my son. I read his letter to her, and told her how worried I was about him. He was supposed to call me Friday night or Saturday, and here it was 6 P.M. Saturday evening, and he still hadn't called. (He ended up calling later.) We talk for a while longer, then I hang up and go back to the lawnmower. And I learned that a thought is just that - a thought. Let it pass. If you don't let it pass, the thought turns into a craving, and the craving turns into a choice to use. And I'm not about choosing to use today. I'm choosing to live. Just because my son is in a therapeutic(?) facility and I'm worried to death about him, I just hand him over to my Higher Power and know that today I still have absolutely noexcuz2uz. Thanks for letting me share. May God bless you and keep you, until next time............

I'm still learing how to ask for help. And it's not easy by any means. But I am learning. I am supposed to graduate from my PHP (Partial Hospitalization Program) Monday. But I'm not ready. I still have two steps to work on, not to mention my relapse prevention program that I still haven't laid eyes on. I got three of the four letters written over the long holiday weekend, and wrote the last one Tuesday night. And I'm doing stepwork with my sponsor in addition to the stepwork I do for therapy. And some days I have to hit two meetings because that's just where I'm at right now. So I told my counselor, "I need your help. I'm not ready to graduate just yet. The Steps have to hold my weight this time, and I want a good foundation. In addition, I need more education about my depression disorder, so I can recognize those triggers and deal with them properly instead of using." Relapse is my biggest concern right now. I'm still learing how to deal with all these emotions that are coming to the surface. So he extended my program four more days, and I might enter a three week Behavioral Therapy Program after I graduate from the Chemical Dependency Program. Either that or go into individual therapy. I feel a great sense of relief. I haven't had any cravings or a desire to use in six days now, and I know that won't last forever. And I'm learning the importance of the Twelfth Tradition by accepting that people are where they are, and my approval isn't needed. I remind myself that it's not all about me anymore, and I'm not sitting in a meeting looking for friendship. N.A. isn't a social club. I'm there for the recovery. My life and my recovery depend on it. And if I get offended, that's my shit. I need to look at me instead of the one I think was out of line. Because I know my thinking is still screwed up. What I perceive to have happened most likely didn't happen that way at all. My perspecive is still skewed. I'm a master at making a mountain out of a molehill, and my paranoid mind is great at making me think, "So-and-so doesn't like me". And I can't hold on to my ass and stay clean today while I'm holding my "You hurt my feelings" mask on my face. But one thing I do know that's not screwed up is that today, no matter what happens or what I perceive happens, I still have noexcuz2uz. Thanks for letting me share. God bless and keep you, until next time............

My sponsor and I went to a noon meeting Saturday, and for the first time since Toney died on Sept. 11, 2007, I went into the restaurant where he worked when we started dating so we could eat lunch. There were so many emotions to process, it took me until today to do it. I sat down this morning and wrote the letter to my parents like my counselor wanted me to do (I'm taking suggestions seriously this time), and there are more emotions to process, not to mention the pain. And my physical pain level is up today. Because I'm still learning how to process emotional pain and anger, it's still coming out physically. But that's okay. My physical pain level is way down from what it was when I went into detox. So I'm getting better emotionally. But I feel like I really need to get my ass to a meeting, so I think I'll hit two today just to be on the safe side. And do some more stepwork and read the literature. And my sponsor invited me over to barbeque and meet her daughters. So even though I have all these emotions to process today, I figure sitting in meetings is the best place to do it. I know the only way out is through, and stuffing my emotions won't work anymore. For the first time in a long time, I woke up today with no cravings, and I'm thanking my Higher Power for that. Because even though I'm feeling 28 years of pent-up anger and pain, today I still have noexcuze2uz. Thanks for letting me share. God bless you and keep you, until next time.....

Well, I uploaded some new pics today. And yes, my best thinking got me here. If only I could shut off my brain. Today ended week two of a three week, seven-hour-a-day partial hospitalization program that I am in since I got out of the Crisis Intervention Unit on May 10, 2008. And I am exhausted. I have driven 40 miles a day to get to therapy. I've written my life story and presented it to my group, which was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life, besides telling my children their father had died. I told those people (most of whom I now consider my friends) more things than I ever told my sponsors. Maybe that's because I really want this way of life this time, and I'm holding nothing back, just like I did in active addiction. I'm an all or nothing kind of gal, anyway. One night I drove 60 miles after therapy so that I, my youngest daughter, my sponsor, and some members of my new home group could do some asphalt recovery and visit my old home group. I've been hitting two meeting some days. And I've loved and enjoyed every minute of it. I'm tired. But my mind isn't. I keep thinking about my therapy assignment for the weekend. And I'm thanking my Higher Power that I have three days to do it. I have stepwork to finish, both for therapy and for my sponsor, and I have letters to write to family members. But only one of them will hit the mailbox. That one's for my 15-year-old son, who currently is in a theraputic facility not far from where I attend therapy. He's got six months clean, but since he is in the custody of the Alabama Dept.of Youth Services, he can't go to a meeting and pick up his keytag. (Will he rack up on keytags when he gets out!) The other letters will be to family members and to my deceased husbands. (Yes, it's plural. Yes, there's more than one. Hell, there's three.) And I'm really having a hard time trying to figure out exactly what I want to say in those letters. Knowing that no one but the group is ever going to know what will be in those letters is somewhat comforting. But the thing is, I don't want to look at the pain I caused some of my family, and I don't want to look at the pain my husbands caused me. Hell, I've self-medicated for so long and to such an extent that when I got out of detox I was so emotionally numb I couldn't even reconnect to my Higher Power. But I've accumulated a few seconds of clean time now (10 days, whooohooo!), and I'm not so numb as I was when I went through those hospital doors. Telling my life story brought up a lot of anger I never dealt with, and when I say a lot, I mean it. I wasn't allowed to express anger when I was growing up, so I never learned how. Which means I stuffed it. And I stuffed it good. Way deep down where hopefully it would never see the light of day. And because I wasn't allowed to express it when I was young, as I got older it took a lot for me to get angry. But when I did, you'd better run. And if it was you I was angry with, you'd better run far, far away. Because I was like Mount St. Helen's when I got angry. And when I blew up, the damage was just as far and extensive as that volcano. Hell, when my first husband had an affair when I was pregnant with my son and I found out, I broke every plate we owned by smashing them in the kitchen floor. Another husband pissed me off, and I kicked out the windshield on his car. So you get the idea. And with me, where there's anger, there's pain. Because I usually don't get angry with someone unless they hurt me in some way or another, like in the above cases. But I couldn't tell them I was angry because they had hurt me, I didn't know how to communicate those emotions. And I'm just learning how to do that now, by saying "When you ___, I feel _____." But they're not here now for me to use that tool. Wish I'd had that tool in the ol' toolbag back then. Hell, before I went to detox, the only tool in my toolbag was a shovel. And I think that's the only tool they had, too. We just didn't know we were using them to dig our graves.

I think I'll sleep on those letters tonight, and pray to my Higher Power about exactly I want to put in them. And tomorrow all that pain and anger will come out of the darkness and into the light. And when it does, I'll still know that even though I've hurt people, and people have hurt me, I still have noexcuz2uz. Thanks for letting me share. God bless you and keep you until next time............

Well, I am not the one in charge, that's for certain. As for large, well, nevermind that. I woke up this morning feeling groggy again from the med I take at night, and as usual every morning I did not want to get out of bed. But I did, and I got on the computer to get my Just For Today daily meditation in my email, and it's on the Fourth Step. So I'm thinking since I'm on the First Step it really doesn't apply, right? Wrong. An old recovery friend came to mind, and I don't know if I'll ever see her again, but if I do I've got a hug waiting for her. And an apology. So I'm checking the other stuff in my inbox, and there's an email that's right on time. It made me feel so good. Thanks, Bruce. I really needed that today. So I take my daughter to work, and come back home, and the fact that I don't have a permanent sponsor is really weighing on my mind. But, that's okay. I just give it to God, and let Him worry about it while I get ready for a noon AA meeting. Even though NA is my program of choice, I attend AA meetings in my city because the NA group here does not meet everyday. Because of this, there are alot of addicts in AA meetings here. Anyway, when I get there, I sit by this woman and I hear the word "drugs" and whenever I hear this in an AA meeting my ears automatically tune in since I'm on the sponsor hunt. No offense intended to women in AA. You have some awesome recovery and lots of great things to say in meetings that keep me clean. But since I have two alcoholic parents and my main thing was drugs, I really just can't identify with someone that has never done drugs. Yes, alcohol is a drug. But when I was using I had to be in the mood to drink, and I could stop drinking when I wanted to. But not drugs. I had no stop button. But back to the meeting. I'm sitting there sippin' coffee and the woman next to me is talking about when she used drugs. So we started talking, and she's got 18 months clean today (yea!) and then after the meeting we went outside to drink coffee and talk. Anyway, she agreed to sponsor me! (Another yea!) I think she was just as excited as I was. I'm her first sponsee. And as we were talking and she told me about how she had just moved here three weeks ago from two states away, and she drove the same color, make and model car that I did when I was in recovery in Huntsville in '01, and how she lived in the same town that I used to live in, it was so plain that this was God putting people together in certain times and places and not just a coincidence. And I am so grateful that I'm not in charge of anything but me today. That's all I can handle, and the rest is up to Him. Whew! I'm so thankful for this space and all the wonderful people here. Thanks for letting me share. God bless and keep you until next time.....