May 25, 2012

Just Today






Glass of wine in hand.  Beach cottage: Thanksgiving, 1980.  I drank for three plus more years.


At AA meetings, we don’t discuss drug addiction, but I was a very low bottom addict.  A good handful of street speed would keep me going all through the days and nights.  When the hallucinations got too bad and I became strung out, 25 hits would let me sleep.  I became homeless, and my children survived by living with their dad.  My world was insane, and the only thing I longed for was inner peace to silence the madness in my mind.  I quit drugs years before I stopped drinking.

I wasn’t the worst drunk you had ever seen.  By the time I reached my bottom point, I had a job and a cottage and a ten color car.  Still I was miserable.  I looked for love in all the wrong places.  I was severely depressed.  I’d go to work at my starter job with some of the worst, shakey hangovers ever known.  My hangovers were so bad that I couldn’t drink for days.  I was unable to see that this was really end stage alcoholism as my body had began shutting down.

Today, I have the material things that keep life comfortable, but better than that I have that inner peace I longed for during those really bad years.  Sometimes during this 28 year climb back, I had no idea what was happening around me.  It took me 12 years to understand AA well enough to be able to use the tools they offered.  It’s taken me even more years to learn the things most folks learn as children

I will always be an addict and alcoholic, but just today I am in recovery.  Just today is pretty darned good.

13 comments:

  1. I am sorry you didn't have it earlier, but I have to admit I'm glad you found the inner peace. (It's in a different place for all of us.)

    It doesn't matter to me what you were, as much as it matter that I like what you've become.

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  2. Bless you. Thank you for sharing.

    Re looking for love in all the wrong places...
    I heard a woman say (in a meeting), the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

    Dianne

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  3. Glad that you are here now - safe and happy and giving so much to those who love you.

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  4. You found you way again, though. You should be proud of yourself for the place you find yourself now; think of those who never did. Welcome home.

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  5. You are amazing! And yes, it IS pretty darned good, isn't it?

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  6. You managed to figure out that you wanted something better and you did it. You have so much to be proud of now....congratulations.

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  7. You are better off than my younger brother who died of Hepatitis C at age 55 after spending 10 years in prison. He was a drug addict, shooting up heroin and cocaine. He made his wife and 2 kids miserable.

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  8. I will never understand I suppose why some people are at last able to put their lives back together and others don't seem to be able to. Oh how I wish our niece and nephew could find their way out of their addictions. They're both in their forties, and the niece is in prison. I see no signs to give me hope for their future. I'll never understand addiction.

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  9. Brave post - so glad that you found your way back.

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  10. And the wisdom to know the difference xxx

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  11. Thank you for sharing your story.

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  12. You should be so proud of your self. I'm proud of you.

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  13. I'm so glad you're found the peace you sought and sorry for the pain you've had to endure. I see your beauty now in all your wonderful photos.

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