Howdy Everyone,

I knew I was taking a break from this, but I don't think I realized it was going to be 5 months.

Just wanted to let everone know that I am doing just fine. I have my friends and family around me, work is good, I've had a fun summer with lot's of activities.

I turned 37 in June and celebrated by going on an all day hike up a freakin' mountain. Something I never would have done in the past. Also went on a 3 day hike at the end of September, that's where this photo was taken. Also something I never would have done in the past.

Been remodeling my kitchen too, all by myself mostly. Taking every weekend do work on it a little more. I'm almost done, should get quite a bit done today in fact, as soon as I get away from the computer and get my butt over to Home Depot. That has been a huge project that I feel most proud of. I could not have accomplished it while I was drinking all the time. As functional an alcoholic as I was, I was never that functional.

Still seeing my therapist and working on things. The next big step in my life is to start showing my paintings. It's a matter of working on my self esteeem and being able to face rejection without crumbling apart. I'll get there eventually.

All in all the past 5 months have been extremely good to me.

Just wanted to pop in and tell everyone that I'm still alive, and thriving.

Can't go backwards, only forwards.

Hello to all my friends here at 12ss. I am going to stop posting in this blog for awhile. I need to take a few steps away from this site, it has become a little too obsessive for me. I am also heading in a different direction recovery-wise with my therapist. There are other things in my life right now that need to be addressed, and hiding online is not going to make it easier for me to live my life.

I will still check my email from time to time. I might be back at some point, but for now I need to head back into reality and limit my computer time. I guess I'm sort of taking the summer off. I'll think of it that way.

For the folks who I have just recently become friends with, sorry. I'll understand if you remove me from your contacts list.

I wish you all the best. Thank you for all the support these past several months. Be well.

Bethany

Yesterday was such a wonderful day, only because I am sober and able to appreciate the smaller things in life now.

The weather is finally getting fantastic (my fellow Portlanders, I'm sure you agree). The way the sky clears up after our many months of rain and the sun shines down, not too hot. These are the days that make living here in Oregon a joy.

My assistant at work got back from a 2 week vacation, I missed her terribly and it's so good to have her back. I had 2 weeks of working really late and stressing out. Now she is back to shoulder some of the work, and that made me smile all day!

I managed to finally get plants for my vegetable garden this summer. I've decided a different approach is in order this year. Instead of trying to cram as many plants in as I can (small yard) I'm just going to plant a handful of things and let it do it's thing. If we don't get any tomatos this year, so be it. There will be plenty of tomatos I can purchase at the farmers market if I have to.

Then when I got home from the garden store I had a package waiting for me from a friend. He sent me a collage he made, and an old picture of me from 18 years ago (see picture). I can't believe he's had this picture all these years. It cracked me up. I remember my friend Karen taking the picture and I was trying to look pretty so that I could give this picture to this same boy. Well, he's not a boy anymore and he never actually became my boyfriend way back then, but he had this picture all these years and 18 years later we're still friends 3000 miles apart in our own lives, and he sent it back to me. It just made me laugh, and think, and I love my life now and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Yesterday was a wonderful day.

Here I am another 48 hours later and I am well. I am back to normal. My head has cleared and with it the anger. Was it just a hormonal surge? I may never know. Was it that I finally had time to take care of myself last night? Perhaps. Did my husband and I resolve our argument? Not really, but I can let it go. It wasn't the argument that was making me mad and miserable, it just lit the fuse.

I say this all the time, but what a strange journey of the mind this sobriety is. In therapy I'm asked all these questions, the big ones that make me think. So I can learn what makes me tick, and which are bad and which are good.

How did I used to feel when I was angry when I was drinking? Well shit, I don't remember. I was drunk, I was numb, so I guess I didn't really get all that angry. I just didn't care.

How did it make me feel when my husband would do this or say that when I was drinking? Gee, I don't know. I was drunk, I could tune it all out and not deal with any of it. It takes two to argue, only takes one to drink a bottle.

I guess I never knew what my anger really felt like. People would tell me how mellow I was, how I was so patient with others. They thought I was a saint. Little did they know, little did I know, I was a raging angry maniac that was simply tempered with alcohol. Huh. Who knew? Not me.

I guess the lesson learned from the past few days is to make sure I take care of myself. I need to get away from excessive stress and find ways to stay calm. Once I made up my mind to let it go, and be good to myself, I woke up feeling alright again.

Or it could be the damn hormones. Menopause here I come. HAHA.

Wow. It is still absolutely amazing to me that I can feel so good only 2 days ago, and today feel like crap. Only a short 48 hours.

I'll give a list of excuses:

fight with husband over money, stress at work and working too much, hormones.

OK. Those are my excuses. All excuses that in the past would make me feel like crap and give me another excuse to drink. Two drinks for each excuse in this case. Maybe three.

Today I was so out of my skin and prickly I was having short bursts of anger mixed with a fight-or-flight feeling that had me thinking about alternately getting in my car and never coming back and jumping off a bridge into the river. I just couldn't get right with myself all day and I'm still wondering what the hell is going on. It would be easy to dismiss if I was having cravings with it, but I'm not. I don't want a drink, I know it won't make me feel any better. In fact I know very well that it would make me feel worse. It won't solve the grit-under-my-skin feeling.

The anger and resentment and despair I'm feeling is 200% more than it should be over what is happening in my life today. I should be able to let it go and move on, just take care of myself and go to my "healing room" and come out alright. This is not working. I am mad mad mad mad mad at the world and myself and I want everyone around me to suffer as well. I feel like stomping my feet and breaking things. This is just not like me, I'm not usually like this and it feels bad. Ugly.

So even just a few short months ago when I would feel like this I could blame it on the recovery, blame it on having cravings, because I wanted to drink over this kind of stuff. Now I'm kind of screwed because today I can't blame it on a craving, the craving is not there. I have to just admit I'm crazy. That doesn't feel good. Just plain old crazy, screwed up, and nuts.

"I have a healing room inside me, where I can go when spirits guide me"- Sinead O'Connor

Something is definitely different inside me. I have a calm that I can create and hang on to. Even when some idiot is honking at me and giving me the finger, because he doesn't know how to drive and is in too much of a hurry, I can give him the finger right back, calmly. LOL.

The mind/body connection is so obvious to me now. When I am free from alcohol I am not poisoned, therefore I can think clearly. When I am toxic, and hungover, my mind doesn't work properly. The fact that I was able to function at all for 22 years of drinking absolutely astounds me. The fact that I was able to make any decisions at all in my life, going to college, moving across country, getting married, buying a house, finding a job, changing jobs, all of the things we take for granted. How did I do all that with the day to day poison in my system? I'll never know how I managed, and I'm never going to go back to living like that again.

The calm comes with the inner cleaning. I did body cleaning by quitting my bad drinking habit and taking vitamins and eating well and excercising. I cleaned my mind by seeing a therapist and hashing out some bad feeling from my past. Mostly a date-rape that happened 18 years ago, which I blamed myself all these years and will not EVER blame myself for again. There were a few other things that I had never examined and needed to sort out. Those things have been examined, sorted, and can be put to rest now.

Both of these things happened together. I had to get sober to see the truth in therapy. I had to go to therapy to get my mind straight, just quitting drinking was not going to be enough all alone. Now I have healed a part of myself, and I don't have to worry over ripping it open again. It's done. The past is gone and I'm over it.

I can always go to the healing room and stay quiet and listen to my own thoughts and be inside my own skin with calm and peace and enjoy being there. I don't remember a time when I was happy in my own skin with my own thoughts, until now. I love it.

I've gotten back to swimming. For real. Not just the "swimming in clear water" but going to the gym and getting in the pool and doing the mile. This morning I swam a mile in 55 minutes. Yee Haw!

I didn't swim most of the winter, because, and this is funny, I hadn't had my legs waxed. I didn't want to subject anyone else to the sight of my waaaay hairy legs. I finally took care of the legs a few weeks ago, so I can swim again. Tee Hee.

I realized this morning that I think quite a bit while I swim. It's not the same as other excercise where I'm just trying to get it over with, and I go into a kind of non-thinking meditative zone. Which is nice, too, in it's own way. But when I'm doing laps I really think. I used to think about the past, and all the mistakes I made over the years. There were times I thought about my sobriety, or lack of it. I started swimming long before I got sober. I used to swim away the hangover thinking I was cleansing myself. It was the same with 5 years of weekly yoga, it was about cleansing the toxins from my body to try and start fresh. Over and over and over again.

This morning I was thinking about art. I was pondering my dedication to my art and where I wanted it to take me. I have periods of creative explosions, working on 3 or 4 paintings at a time. Then I go dormant for a month, or two months. This used to bother me. I thought, "why can't I be creative all the time? Why am I so lazy"?

I'm not lazy. I am me. I am swimming back to me. I cannot be everything to everyone. I cannot be superwoman. I cannot do 20 things at once. I am not perfect. I am simply trying to figure out my life before it's over and I have no more time. I am trying to enjoy every minute of my life, and if the art is going to stress me out I will leave the paints sitting there until I have something to "say" on a canvas.

The other thing I was thinking about this morning is how much easier life has become without juggling drinking around in it. I just don't have the time. I used to bend over backwards to do everything while sober, so that I could get drunk and not worry about it. How much simpler to just not get drunk. Then I have nothing to worry about. It's a simple equation: me + alcohol =stress. Me - alcohol =calm.

It has been pointed out to me lately, by people who know me very well, people who see me day after day, that I may not be a "true" alcoholic. I don't have an answer for that. I stuck the label "alcoholic" on myself because I needed help, desperately. I got that help. I am still being helped. I will always need help. I have an unhealthy obsession with alcohol that may never go away. I know that I am better off without the booze. That I know is true, and it is all that matters right now. Whether I am a "true" alcoholic or not is irrelevant. I have to stay away from it.

"your sunken pearls adorn the depths where your body rests within the hands of fish and sand. swim back to me". The Geraldine Fibbers

I have not been here in awhile. I have been a little ashamed. I have slid just a little ways down my mountaintop.

The day after my 6 month sobriety date I went out there and drank. It was the silliest thing I could have done, but I had my reasons. I felt like I had put it off long enough. I had told myself week after week after week "not yet, not this time". The waiting was too much for the addict that lives in my head, and I had just had enough. I figured I would dance the same old dance: Drink, get drunk, get sad, cry, wail, and moan. Pass out. Wake up and feel remorse and then jump right back on the recovery highway without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror. I thought that if I lived through it one more time then I would know, without a doubt, that I am indeed an alcoholic and should start taking this shit more seriously.

Well, I got lucky. The same old dance didn't happen.

I used to feel like I had a switch in my head. When I would drink it would flip "on" and the need for more and more alcohol would be insatiable. "With a rebel yell, she cried more, more, more". That was me. I couldn't get enough, I had to get to a certain place that was dark and dank and angry and sad and comfortable. I was so familiar with it, and I hated it and loved it, too.

This time, I couldn't go there. I had a few drinks and began to feel familiar with the rush again. I sat around in my liquid skin for an hour or two, and then I couldn't go any further. I had enough booze around me to put myself in a hospital if I drank it all. I thought if I gave myself enough rope, I would hang. I think I had truly set out to prove to myself that I had no control. My rational and happily sober side would not give in. At one point I thought "I don't think I want to drink anymore of this". I decided to take a shower and see how I felt after that. I sat back down with the intention of drinking more, and I still couldn't do it. I poured it down the sink, and I felt no remorse about it. I drank some water, and went to bed.

In the morning I was sweaty and felt pretty toxic. But I felt OK emotionally. I went and worked out and sweated out all the poison in me. I just don't like being hungover, and that alone might be just enough to keep me sober from here on out.

All of this has left me very confused. It didn't play out the way I thought it would. Today I have been sober for 7 days, again. I have had no cravings at all. I feel bad that I don't feel worse. I feel like I got away with something. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. I was supposed to feel bad, really really bad!

I am back on the recovery highway after only a brush at the darkness. Something has healed inside me. The need to go to that dark and ugly place is gone. So I don't need the alcohol either. It's the only way to get there, but if I don't want to go, it's easy to stay out. All I have to do is not drink. There are better places to go, sober.

Thanks to everyone here at 12ss. It's one of three places I can be completely honest, I love you all for that.

Journey April 11, 2007

Today is April 11. Which doesn't mean anything to anyone but me. It's not some special holiday in Canada and it's not an obscure religious holiday. It's not my birthday, but it is, sort of, in a way.

One year ago today I woke up completely hungover and went to work. I was miserable and kicking myself yet again. This was nothing new, but I was maybe a tiny bit more hungover than usual. I had a date with my husband that night to go to a fancy Italian restaurant, one of our weekly dinner dates. I was unhappy with myself that I had drank so much the night before, I knew I wouldn't be hungry, I wouldn't enjoy the food. After work I was going to be wiped out from dragging my ass through the day. I wasn't going to be able to drink with dinner, because I knew my body would reject it. Another glass of wine was not the hair-of-the-dog for me, it was just poison. I knew I would sit at dinner with D--- and probably complain constantly about work, I was so depressed, so unhappy with life. I was dying so slowly. I knew it, and didn't think I knew how to change it. I knew the alcohol was a factor, but I couldn't stop. Every week I tried to stop, and couldn't. It had me by the balls.

We had dinner together that night and I remember it was not that great. His steak had a lot of fat through it and was stringy, and my gnocchi was just gnocchi, it had nothing fun in it. It was plain and boring. I was disappointed with my meal and how expensive it was. The evening was a disappointment.

Our conversation turned serious when D--- said he could see how unhappy I was, how things were getting worse. He blamed it all on my work. He thought that I was drinking so much because I was miserable with work, and partly he was right. I certainly used work as a great excuse to drink, as an escape. His solution was to tell me to quit. Work. He was making decent money at his new job. He thought he'd be there awhile, he seemed to like it much better than the previous job. There was no imminent danger that he would lose it and quit, or get fired. He was offering me the biggest gift he could offer me. He wanted to support us for awhile, so I could paint or make art or whatever...take some time off and maybe look for a different job. He wanted me to be happy. He didn't want to see me go on like I was, and he didn't want me to keep drinking like I was. I think he missed me. I was “gone” so much of the time when I was at home. It was my turn to not work, and he was offering to make that happen.

I can't explain why my brain clicked in just such a way that night. If I had not been hungover I might have had a different reaction. If I had been drinking I would have had a different reaction. I'll never know what did it. I thought about what he was saying and I got very scared, and very clearheaded. I thought about what my days and nights would be like if I quit working, and what I saw in front of me was terrifying:

I saw my future laid before me, endless days and nights of alcohol. I saw days where I couldn't get out of bed, the hangover ache running in my veins, thrumming in my head, churning in my guts. I saw nights in my studio painting drunk and staying up until 3 am every night, headphones on, listening to music at high volume, making a mess and keeping D--- awake with my fumbling around. Possibly sleeping in my studio 4 nights a week so I wouldn't disturb him, instead of sleeping by his side where I belonged. I saw myself getting lazier and lazier, laying on the couch watching TV glassy-eyed, getting fatter and fatter, drunker and drunker. I saw myself going to the liquor store instead of the grocery store, to get vodka instead of wine. I could see the empty bottles piling up in the recycling faster and faster. A never-ending flood of alcohol controlling my life and my actions. I saw my husband leaving me, for good reason, and I saw myself in so deep that I just didn't care. I saw it all play out in front of me like a terrible movie of my terrible life, a life I didn't want to live.

There was only one solution. I realized I had to quit, drinking, not my job. My job was only a fraction of the problem. Quitting my job was not going to make me drink less, it was going to open the path for me to drink more, and I knew it and couldn't let it happen. So I decided pretty much right then and there that I had to finally do something. I was clinging to a life raft at that point, I was barely surviving each of my days as they went by. I had needed a better reason to quit drinking, so I told myself that I had to get the drinking “under control” before I could quit my job.

Here it is, a year later to the day. In 2 days I will have been sober for 6 months. If I forgive the last time I “slipped” it's more like 9 months. Last April, May, and June were just the beginning for me of trying to slow it down, taper off, whatever you want to call it. In my mind I have been in active recovery for a year, full circle. So I can see now that today is a birthday for me, of sorts. If I hadn't clearly seen my future that night at dinner, I would not be here today. D--- might not still be with me, I was progressing pretty fast. I might not be 100% happy in my sobriety every day these days, but I'm not 100% miserable in my addiction either. I have to take the good and remember that it's good, and remember how bad the bad was. Turns out my husbands gift to me was much bigger than either of us expected.

Happy Birthday to me.

Went to my regular Monday night meeting last night and got word that one of the women in our group had a relapse. A slip. She felt terrible of course. She had been doing so well riding on that pink cloud. I think she had a very long ride on the pink cloud and thought that it was going to stay that way. My pink cloud lasted literally 3 days, that's it, and I was back to harsh reality. I wanted that feeling back so badly it drove me nuts for awhile.

When it was my turn to speak I talked about how I have been living on the edge of relapse for several weeks now, probably about 2 months. I've come extremely close to picking up a bottle and just saying "to hell with it, I don't give a shit anymore". Every weekend it's the same song in my head. Do I? Don't I? Pushing it away, telling it no, later, later, later, some other time. Maybe for me living on the edge of it for so long, I've just plain gotten used to it. I've gotten used to the cravings showing up like clockwork over certain triggers, and I've managed to make some of those triggers completely go away.

One of my worst triggers at the beginning was work, and stress at work. Today I worked for 10 hours. No lunch break, no break at all until I took a break so that I wouldn't have to break my co-workers neck. I got through the day and walked out of there much later than normal and headed home and was driving down the street before I realized suddenly, "I'm not thinking about drinking". AHA! I couldn't believe it. And even when I realized that, it didn't change into "oh shit, now I want to drink because I thought of it". I still didn't want to. It was not a desire. I wanted to just come home and eat dinner and relax, no booze necessary. I am tired but I ate dinner and paid a few bills and watched a little TV with my honey, and I'm just fine. I'm not looking at the clock, I'm not pacing the room, I'm not angry or sad.

Today a burden was lifted from me, even in the midst of my own turmoil. It went from Sundays being my only "easy" day to now being able to manage 5 days out of my week. If I can conquer the weekend cravings, eventually, I'll be alright.

In the meantime I guess I'd rather live on the edge of relapse instead over it.

I know it's not really summer yet, but the weather is rapidly changing into what I used to consider really good outdoor activity weather. My favorite activity being sitting in a beer garden somewhere with friends watching people go by and slowly (or quickly) getting loaded until night fell with the temperature still warm.

Yesterday was gorgeous. Just perfect. About 75 and warm breezes. Everyone at work had Spring fever, it was so hard to be inside. We were busier than hell and I was buried in paperwork up to my eyeballs and was having a very hard time managing my stress. Then to top it off it's Friday and I am still having a really tough time with weekends. My head got in a bad place by the end of the day. More of the same old shit. Having a pity-party in my head, why can't I? Is it really so bad? and so on and so forth.

I know most of my triggers and some of them are simply unavoidable. I can't avoid a beautiful day that brings back fond memories of drinking outdoors. It sounds so silly, but that's really what it is for me. A sensory feeling of loss, something I used to really love even though it was bad for me in the long run.

I made it through the evening haphazardly. I stormed around a little bit. Sulked. We had a friend over to play cards so that was a good distraction, but that was really just it, a distraction. I chatted a little with a friend here on 12ss. She made me laugh a little, and that helped, too. (You know who you are sweetie). I have to remember that it's serious, but my emotions about it don't need to be so serious. It's really not the end of the world. How idiotic is it for a grown woman to be sulking because she can't go have a drink? Puh-leez!

I woke up this morning around 5:15am since nature was calling. And as I walked through the upstairs hallway I realized that my studio window was still wide open, and nature was truly calling me. It was raining a warm gentle Spring rain, just a drizzle really. And it was still dark but the birds were just starting to chirp. The world outside was quiet, no cars, no people. I felt like it was all just for me. The tree outside my window is filling in with tender new leaves and the rain muffled everything. I just crouched by the window for a few minutes and listened, and breathed.

A year ago I might have experienced that same rain shower in a different way. I might have been up all night in my studio drinking. I might have been thinking about finally going to bed, passing out. I might have heard that rain and shuffled and stumbled downstairs to go outside and stand in it, to let it wash over me. And then I would have passed out and woke up in the morning wondering why there were muddy footprints in the kitchen, and why my clothes on the floor were wet. And I might not have ever remembered feeling the rain on my face, and I certainly would not have been able to experience it the way I was meant to this morning.

Then I went back to bed. It's Saturday for cryin' out loud. Who wants to be up at 5:15 am?

I should have gone to the doctor a week ago. All my suffering, and all he did was write me a couple of prescriptions and give me a new inhaler for my asthma and I'm good to go.

On Prednisone now for a little while to help my allergies and inflammation of my lungs. It's helped immediately. I also got a scrip for cough syrup with coedine. Eeek. I'm never been much of a opiate freak, but I was coughing so bad I just drank it down. I'll admit that the first thing I thought was "this would be great with a couple of drinks". hee hee.

I didn't go there, but I thought it. I stopped coughing too. I also was pretty high and unable to sleep so the bottle remains untouched since then. I'll just keep up with the steriods and leave the cough syrup alone. It was a pretty unpleasant high, I didn't like it at all. My legs felt like lead but I wasn't tired, just strung out. I'd rather sleep on my own without help.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. My allergies and asthma are now under control and I can go back to the gym and go OUTSIDE if I want to.

hello spring!

I'm not that good at taking care of myself. In the past I have gone to work sicker than a dog and all I got for it was, well, sicker.

I'm going to the doctor today about this cough I've had for about a week. Before the cough was massive allergies due to Spring. Now I don't think it's allergies anymore, something has settled into my lungs and wants to stay.

I'm only going to the doctor because my husband wants some sleep. He wanted me to go the the immediate care place. I hate going there because unless I'm on deaths door I just don't want to sit there and wait, and wait, and wait. If I had my way I'd give it a few more days before going to the doctor. I don't like to waste anybodys time.

So today I did myself a favor and I called in sick to work. Of course I can't just stay in bed, that's boring. Actually managed to get an appointment with the doctor today, nothing short of a miracle. So here I am on the computer wasting time until I go, when I should be in bed.

I feel like, since I quit drinking, doesn't that mean I'm supposed to be healthy? It was to expected that when I was drinking all the time my immune system was compromised and so I'd catch something here and there and everywhere. In the past when I still smoked I'd get bronchitis all the time, had pneumonia twice. It was the second round of pneumonia that convinced me to quit smoking 12 years ago.

But now I'm a health nut. Early to bed and early to rise, going to the gym 4 or 5 days a week, taking my vitamins and eating well. I've lost about 20 lbs. I'm not drinking, not smoking. My only vices are coffee and ice cream. It's not fair that I'm sick!!!!! It just shouldn't be allowed!

The one good thing about being sick is my cravings go out the window. I don't want to drink. I feel like crap already, and I don't think a drink will make that any different. So the past few days have been a breeze on the sobriety front.

I'm going back to bed.

" I'm walking down in the basement. I'm leaning on the washing machine. I'm reaching back through a hole in the walls insulation. I'm pulling out a bottle of vodka. Replacing that with a pint of Jim Beam. I'm lying down on the floor until I feel better."

"It's morning and I pour myself coffee. I drink it till the kitchen stops shaking. I'm backing out of the driveway and into creation. And the loving spirit that follows me, watching helplessly. Will always forgive me."

"oh, I want to die alone with my sympathy beside me. I want to bring down all those demons that drank with me. Feasting gleefully on my desperation."

"I hide all the bottles in places. They find and confront me with pain in their eyes. And I promise that I'll make some changes. But reaching back it occurs to me. There will always be some kind of crisis for me."

"oh, I want to die alone with my sympathy beside me. I want to bring back all those moments they stole from me. In my reverie. darkening day's end. Oh, I want to die alone with my memories inside me. I want to live that life when I could say people had faith in me. I still see that guy in my memory. Oh, I want to die alone with my symapthy beside me. I want to bring down all those people who drank with me. Watching happily. My humiliation."

This song is on Liz Phair's CD "somebody's miracle"

I love this picture, I took it about a year ago, deep in my addiction. I thought it was so funny to get a bottle of wine called "screwed", how clever is that? I just couldn't delete it off my computer. It was terrible Australian wine, cheap and hard to drink. But I drank it anyway, and then took the picture.

I had a what I'm going to call a "near-relapse experience" this past weekend. It opened my eyes to a few things about myself. It was a dangerous experiment with wonderful results, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone.

My better half was out of town for the weekend, trigger number one. In the past, his leaving was a signal to me to have the whole house to myself and just get wasted. Drink, paint, play my music really loud, pass out in my studio.

I didn't tell anyone that he was going out of town. Trigger number 2. Secrecy. Isolation. I knew that I could relapse if I wanted to and not ever have to tell a soul that it happened. I could lie, lie, lie to myself and everyone else. "How was your weekend?" "Just fine".

I was making time for myself to drink. Trigger number 3. I was doing chores and cleaning house and taking care of business with a thought towards being hungover and incapacitated at some point.

Basically what it comes down to was I was planning on being able to drink if I chose to. I had not made any hard and firm decisions about it, I wanted to let the weekend play out and see what I would do. The only plan I had with certainty was a potluck dinner with friends on Saturday night.

Friday night was hard. I was having some pretty strong cravings, but I had things I wanted to do on Saturday. So I got movies and made myself dinner and nested and went to bed early. Saturday went by in a blur. I did a bunch of stuff around the house, and went to the gym, and went shopping. Uh-oh. Shopping.

I actually went down the wine aisle and picked out a bottle of wine. When I put my hands on it my knees went weak and my stomach started churning. I was excited, and very very frightened. I told myself right there, "you don't have to drink it". My stomach stopped churning. But I bought the damn thing anyway.

That bottle sat in the fridge all afternoon taunting me. I had to make food for the potluck and drive to my friends house in the pouring rain. I was not going to drink until later, after I got home. I don't drink and drive.

The potluck was fun, but everyone there was drinking, and at one point the pot pipe came out too. They made me virgin margaritas and I played along nicely until about 10pm. As I drove home that bottle in the fridge got closer and closer, and my stomach tightened up more and more. In the back of my mind I was chanting, "you don't HAVE to drink it".

I got home, took it out of the fridge, put it on the coffee table and stared at it for a minute. Then I put it away and went to bed with my book and the dog.

I thought I would feel triumphant! I thought there would be fanfare and a carnival and a parade!

Instead I felt peaceful.

I didn't know for sure until that moment who I was getting sober for. I had doubts about my motivation and my will. I had doubts about myself. I had doubts about the whole damn thing.

Now I know for sure, I'm doing this for me. I'm doing this because I want to be sober, and healthy, and happy. I want to enjoy life.

I needed to look it in the face and tell it to "screw off". Now I don't have to be afraid anymore. I know what I want. I want to live.

I have been asked to co-moderate my home group meeting this coming Monday since all the regular moderators are going to be unavailable. The good part of this is that when we have the meeting, it will be a small group that night. The bad part is, I've been struggling day to day with my sobriety for weeks now and I don't feel that I am worthy of having anything to do with moderating a meeting. I don't think there's any way right now that I should be a role model for anyone else. I am white-knuckling it day to day, hoping that something different will eventually kick in.

I would like the meeting to focus on the 8th statement in WFS.

"The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth. Daily I put my life into a proper order, knowing which are the priorities."

I want to discuss this statement because it applies to so little in my life. I am not a very spiritual person. I do not believe in god. I was raised Catholic and turned away from the church when I was about 13. I suddenly realized that the spiritual teachings I had pounded into my head as a child were not truly my own held beliefs. How can there be a one true god? How can so many different religions throughout the world believe that their god is the one true god? Who is right? and who is wrong? If each group believes that they are going to heaven, and the rest going to hell.....they must all be right, or all wrong. I think it likely than man created god, and not the other way around. Like man created language, and there are so many different ones. We have created so many different gods throughout history. What some believe today may be laughed at 400 years from now. We can laugh at the ancient Greeks believing in Zeus and Apollo, but they took it very seriously. Those were their gods.

If I were forced to choose, I would choose reincarnation over heaven. It seems more likely, sounds like more fun. I would like to believe that we can take what we learn here on earth and apply it again in another life. That we can meet the same souls again in another life. That the deja-vu that we feel at times really means something, that it means we're on the right path, that it is written, that our fates are made for us, destiny.

I keep hearing that I cannot achieve true recovery without a higher power, without spirituality. This pains me to no end basically being told that without a belief in god my recovery is screwed. I would like to be an an exception to the rule, I would like to find recovery on my own non-spiritual terms. I want to take what I need and leave the rest, leaving god out of the equation. I want to be my own higher power. I want to find a strength within myself to know what is right and wrong, be accountable for my actions, and make the right choices.

How does an atheist find recovery? I will either find out, or I will be forced to find god.

I hope I haven't offended anyone with this post. I respect that many people believe in many different things. I hope that my beliefs will be respected as well. Life is a question, not an answer.

I was just now walking home from dinner with my husband, a weekly dinner date we have. It's a great time for us to re-connect during the week. Even though we don't have kids the stress of jobs and life and other commitments leaves us with little time for each other unless we make it happen.

We were talking about our niece, she's 2 years old. And we were talking about how spoiled she's going to be with all the Grandparents fawning over her, and all the Aunties and Uncles (like us). He was commenting how we were never that spoiled, and I had to stop and think.

No! I WAS that spoiled as a child! One of my grandmothers lived with us when I was born until I was 5 years old, and she spoiled the hell out of me. I loved her so much and spent so much time with her day in and day out. Then she passed away, and my 5 year old mind didn't really understand what that meant. Why was grandma gone? Where is she?

I remember too my other grandmother that lived about 3 hours away. And going to visit her and playing with the glass door-knobs in her house, pretending they were diamonds. I have glass door-knobs in my home now, I'll never get over the childhood fascination with them.

Then she fell ill, and my parents moved her in with us. She was mentally ill, and became another person. Not the grandmother that laughed and hugged me, but an unhappy woman in the throes of depression and senile dementia. I lost both of my grandmothers at a young age. I started crying on the way home as this all hit me at once. I never got to grieve for both of them. For my childhood grandmothers that spoiled me. I was too young to understand the sorrow that filled our home, my parents dealing with grief over their own parents.

I can grieve for them now. Both my parents and my grandmothers.

This past weekend was St. Patrick's Day. A holiday that doesn't mean much to me, but some folks have parties. I have friends who have an annual St. Patty's party every year involving tons of corned beef, "champ" (mashed potaoes), cabbage, and, of course, booze.

On Saturday I had a lovely day with warm weather. Weeded the yard, went to the gym, got groceries, did a bunch of housecleaning. The usual Saturday stuff. In the back of my mind I'm mentally preparing to go to a party where there will be lots of alcohol. In the afternoon I took the dog for a walk and saw a group of folks outside of an apartment building, looked like they were congregating around either a bottle or a drug deal. I minded my own business walking the dog along across the street. One gentleman was obviously very drunk, and he said hello to me. He was so drunk he was swaying as he stood there. I said "how ya' doin"? and he said "I'm a bit buzzed...happy st. patricks day". Being a bit buzzed was quite an understatement for him. He looked homeless, greasy long hair, had no shirt on, and I think every day for him was st.patty's day, if you know what I mean.

I kept thinking about him all day. If he was that messed up at noon, how was the rest of his day going to go? It was a beautiful sunny day, about 70 degrees. How was he going to enjoy it passed out someplace?

I went to the party with my husband. I ate some corned beef, drank some soda, said hello to a few people. I stayed about 2 hours, that was my limit. I wasn't anxious or craving, I was bored. I didn't want to stick around and watch everyone get more and more drunk. Louder and louder, sillier and sillier.

I remembered that the very same party last year I was still drinking. I was nearing the end of my rope however around this time last year. I remembered that I had made an ass of myself with these same people at a different time, and was anxious about getting too f**ked up at the party. So what did I do last year? I went to the party and left early, before I had had too much, and went home and drank alone. That was my solution to making sure I didn't embarrass myself at their party last year. I'd have to say this year was easier, by simply not drinking at all. And nobody asked me why. Nobody looked at the soda in my hand and questioned it. Nobody cared that I wasn't drinking.

I'm starting to come full circle. I don't have a year of sobriety but I am nearing a year of amazing changes in my life. Last year at this time I was miserable and drinking close to every day. I thought I wanted to quit my job, I thought that was what was making me unhappy. I never knew where the next "night out" was going to take me, if I was going to black out or make an ass of myself in front of my friends and strangers. I didn't know if my husband was going to leave me. I didn't know how I was going to lose some weight, my health was bad. I couldn't keep it together, my life was unravelling before my eyes.

This year I went to a party and walked out stone cold sober, in full command of my mind and my body. I woke up with another beautiful day. I wonder what happened to that guy I saw, if he woke up or not.

I have noticed for the past several weeks that where I live and drive regularly, I see about 1 to 2 people blow right through red lights each day. Each day!

It is rather terrifying. I see them the most on my morning commute which is about 5 minutes. In the summer I occasionally ride my bicycle to work the same route. So, in my 5 minute drive I see about 1 car per day run a red light. It's starting to freak me out, and make me a much more careful driver. I have to look both ways once my light is green, just in case.

I never used to be frightened of such things. When I was younger and out at bars all the time I used to walk home alone at all hours of the night, wasted, and didn't care. I wasn't scared of getting robbed or assaulted. I never had anything on value on my person, maybe a few dollars left and a half a pack of cigarettes. I didn't have fancy jewelry or credit cards. If someone broke into my home they would have been hard pressed to find anything of value to take with them. My roommates were just as poor as me. I would go home with strange men, or take them home with me, with no thoughts of my safety. I must have been a pretty good judge of character. In all those years I was only date-raped 3 times. Ha, only.

Even more recently I was not afraid of much. I didn't walk home at night alone very much anymore. I never drove drunk either! Not once! I am a master of public transportation.

I think while I was still drinking I didn't notice the run red lights. I didn't think to myself "what if they hit me"? Now that I am not drinking, I am afraid for that. I now have something of value, my life. I didn't value my life before, and now I do. I didn't stop to think what I would miss if I were hurt or killed. I would be put out of my misery, all the better.

How does one stay sober, and care about themselves, and not be frightened of the future? How do I stay in the now, and avoid the red lights? How do we survive?

Last night I went to my first public event in a venue where there was a bar. I have divorced myself during this time in my life from going to live music shows or comedy clubs to avoid the discomfort of not drinking in that atmosphere. So far this has left me feeling like I'm missing out on a few things I would normally like to do, but to do them without alcohol is so foreign to me that I cannot go. I can't do it.

My husband bought tickets to a comedy show without asking me first if I wanted to go. We went to see Zach Galifanakis. If you haven't heard of him, he's extremely funny, in a very crude way. I like him a lot. My husband didn't think twice about the possibility that I wouldn't want to go due to the venue. This is a comedian that talks some about drinking on stage in his act. And he usually has a glass of something on stage with him during his show.

We talked about it and he could have found someone else to go with him, but I decided to take a chance.

I decided I need to start branching out and feeling my way around these things. I have had too many people suggest to me that I make new friends instead of trying to be sober around my friends who drink, and that I cultivate new interests instead of trying to do the same things sober. I think this is bullshit. It's avoidance. Instead of working on my probl