Life on Life's Terms

The scariest thing about getting sober was figuring out how to deal with life without drinking. Once I could admit that drinking was my problem and did not help me with dealing with life's issues, I had to find another way. This was and is hard and it's a constant work in progress. But while in AA I learned many ways to stay sober through tough days, and even great days, cause those can be a triggers too; how do you celebrate without alcohol, right? To me it is most important to stay connected to my network and share how I feel. This is the "To thine own self be true" part for me (this is on every AA chip.) And I don't isolate and I ask for help. But the best is to reach out to someone else that might need help or support.

Life sometimes deals you some unhappy things. I used to drink extra heavy over those things, cause I drank for all reasons but the bad things were always easier to get really drunk about! As a matter of fact when I found out that my mom had breast cancer I went out and on purpose got drunk, on top shelf Long Island iced teas. I remember that night vividly, it was a Friday.  I remember, I angrily started drinking at happy hour around 6pm, and I even remember leaving the bar somewhere around 2am. I remember the anger that was flowing through my body that whole night; I was going to drink till I couldn't drink anymore.

But what I don't remember was driving in a blackout and running over someone's front yard and their trashcans and being picked up by the cops. As I come to it at the police station, while they were trying to give me a breathalyzer, I opened my eyes and couldn't figure out where I was; I blew .25, and got thrown in jail. That was my attempt to deal with things.

 

So today my mom is going in to start her cyberlknife treatment for the cancer tumor in her brain and my aunt in-law is going in to the hospital this morning too, to start her treatment for lung cancer. Having a bit hard morning, because I don't want to - well no one really wants to - deal with this, at all! And in the past I would have binged drank the whole weekend and called bunch of people to try to get some sympathy! But this weekend I spent sober, I went to a meeting, talked about it and I spent time with my family Enjoying my family and supporting each other, talking and laughing! I feel blessed and grateful to be sober and walking through this step by step, feeling the feelings, with my family and my AA toolbox by my side.