Reflection

I've been posting alot of stuff I am finding along the way but not too much about me. I didn't go to the meeting this morning and I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. I have the day off today because my mother in law is visiting and when the alarm went off at 5:30 I was just so tired I felt I needed more rest so I rolled back over and slept for 2 more hours. I do feel more rested but I also miss those people and I can't wait until tomorrow to get back. We have to leave early to visit family but I will do everything in my power to make sure we leave after the meeting. And if I can get to a meeting in between activities today I will do so. Friday night is the woman's group so I'd like to get to that.

At some point earlier I asked myself how did I get here? (okay, get the Talking Heads out of your mind now:) Well that's too long a story for now but the last time I was sober for any length of time was back in 2004. The Christmas of 2003 was the first Christmas since I had found my mother in an alcoholic stuper in the squaler that had become her home and which resulted in her contracting the disease WKS. From New Years Day of 2003, it had been one hell of a roller coaster ride. We had to move her here, into an assisted living facility after 3 months of hospitalization and then emptied and sold her house. Her brother, my uncle died as a result of alcohol. He was found in his home weeks after he had fallen in his bathroom. He lived far away and I couln't take care of him at the same time as my mother. I had to make a choice. I had to empty and sell his house which had been my grandfather's. My brothers were around but not much help. All this time, even though much of what was happening was a result of alcoholism I kept drinking. I guess I was what would be called a high functioning alcoholic because I was able to do all of this and work but then I would drink until I passed out at night. Dealt with life hungover everyday and drank it all away in the evening. I slowed down when this stuff began but the drinking always progressively got worse.

This all culminated to that Christmas of 2003. I was making dinner and drinking the whole time. Probably from the morning when I started the cooking. I don't remember. My mom was over and she was still out of it. Very much in a fog and not quite with it. My brothers called and I spent some time talking to them. I think I was smoking then because I was out on the porch and all of a sudden the smoke alarms go off and the house fills up with smoke. It was pure chaos. I was clueless. I pretty much had forgotten the expensive roast in the oven. I was talking away, drinking my wine, smoking my cigarettes, sittiing outside in the middle of winter and isolating myself from the people, my husband, children and mother who were in my house. We saved the roast and ate dinner but I don't really remember anything after that. Pure Blackout. I apparently called more people on the phone because I left rambling messages and they called back later in the week and I had no idea. I really scared myself and decided to stop drinking. I did but it only lasted about 6 months or so. Once summer came I started again, you know the routine, maybe I'm not an alcoholic after all, I can control it. I didn't do anything but stop drinking up to then. No AA though I did lurk on the AABC on yahoo but as I have learned that is just not enough. I did successfully quit smoking that summer though. That actually seemed to increase my drinking. Whatever I was missing from the cigarettes I must of transferred to alcohol. And as we all know, it progressively went from my intentions of once as week or one a day to full blown every night drink till you pass out and all the disgusting physical problems that come with it.

So today, I am grateful for AA, my husband who has stuck with me, to God for allowing me to live, for the hot tub at my mother in law's hotel that I'm going to rest my weary bones in later, air conditioning, and my children who I see every day enjoying my sobriety in spite of themselves and their teenagedom. Oh yeah, and also headaches. I keep getting headaches lately and it is so weird to experience a headache that is not cause by alcohol. It's just puzzling me. Very strange. Not sure why I'm getting the headaches. They're not debilitating or anything but I am grateful that they are not hangovers.

Peace