I’m A Little Late This Week!

I know, I know.  I am running behind this week on posting.  It has been a busy 7 or 8 days since my last post.  With Thanksgiving and all that goes with it, I was pretty busy.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I spent all day Wednesday cooking and prepping for Thursday so we could spend as much time as possible with family.  It was tiring, but so worth it.  The only people who weren’t here were my daughter (working – damn early black Friday) and my parents (who probably wouldn’t have came anyway).  We had my Father/Mother in law, my two married step-daughters and their husbands plus kids, my step-son and his wife and son and my step-daughter.  All told we had 11 adults and 7 kids (all of our grandkids)!  It was truly a blessed day.  Food was plentiful and the company was wonderful.  The only down side to the entire day, was the Dallas Cowboys getting their ass whooped.  🙁  We even had enough left over that I took some extra up to our group Thanksgiving in addition to the Mac-N-Cheese that I had made for it.  It was great spending some time with my friends there as well.

I have so many things to be thankful and grateful for this year.  I know I have said this before, but number 1 on the list has to be my sobriety.  As of right here and right now, I have 89 days sober.  In the last 10 years, I honestly cannot remember a time where I have been sober, actually just dry, for that long.  I call it dry, because I wasn’t doing anything to maintain or improve my life other than just pure will power and abstinence.  We see where that got me.  Right back where I was and worse.  This time, I am actually putting in all of the effort both physically and spiritually to maintain my sobriety.  I have not missed any meetings in 90 days.  Ok, technically that isn’t correct.  There were two days where I didn’t make it to a meeting due to illness.  That said, I did make them up by attending multiple meetings on several days.  I have heard it said many times in the rooms that when someone asks “How many meetings a week should I make?” the answer should be “How many days a week did you drink?”.  For me, that would be a minimum of 6 days a week and if I had a chance, 7.  I don’t foresee me stopping attending daily any time soon.  If for no other reason, I absolutely enjoy and look forward to them.  The fellowship and learning that I receive from EVERY meeting is very important to me and to my sobriety.

Second on my gratitude/thankful list has to be my wife.  Jackie has always stood by me.  In good times and bad.  Unfortunately for the last 6 years there has been more bad than good.  She didn’t know what she was getting herself into.  Thank God!  I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her love and stubbornness.  By the Grace of God, there hasn’t been a single thing thrown in the house in almost 3 months!  She is trusting me more and more every day.  Especially when it comes to money.  When I was drinking, she wouldn’t leave change around the house much less give me cash or demand a receipt for something if I bought it using my card.  I can’t blame her.  I honestly didn’t trust myself with money either.  I would tell myself, “I am not going to stop and get beer”  however, every single time, I would.  Just about every promise I ever made to her, I broke.  I meant them from the bottom of my heart when I made them.  I just could not keep them.  That has changed dramatically in the last 3 months.  She knows or at least is continuing to learn that she can trust me when I tell her something.

Third is my Creekwood Church family.  They have been a rock for myself and for Jackie.  They know our troubles and have been there to offer support and prayer when we needed it most.  They are an amazing group of friends.  We were all drawn together in our life group not really knowing each other at all.    We come from all different walks of life.  Some of us are married couples with young children, some of us are married couples with kids out of the nest (for the most part  –  but that is a different post – maybe).  We have been together in our life group for over a year now and have consistently grown closer through our spiritual studies every week.

On a down note, I found out earlier this week that several of the guys that I was with in treatment have gone back out.   They were just short of their 90 day mark as I am.  I am so fortunate that I have had the obsession and desire removed from me.  I know exactly when it happened although I was still drunk at the time.  August 31st, 2017.  Hence my sobriety date of September 1, 2017.  I pray for the guys every day.  Sometimes 3 or 4 times a day.  I pray for their sobriety and for their willingness to go to any length possible to stay sober.  God knows we went to any length to drink and drug.  Drugs were not my thing, so I only have the one vice to deal with.

Thank you for reading my reflections about how the past week has been.  I promise to be more active and update you regularly on what it is like being sober in the alcohol fueled State of Texas.

 

God Bless and Keep the plug in the jug!

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *