A Grateful Recovering Alcoholic

It kind of annoyed me when people added this phrase or something like it to their introductions in meetings. Why can't they just be like the rest of us, plain old alcoholics? I get it now. I went to a commitment Saturday at a rehab facility. As I looked out on the faces in the room and thought about the almost 10 months I've managed to stay sober, I realized that I was indeed a grateful and recovering alcoholic. I underline the ing because I know I have a long way to go. But according to the Big Book I can recover because it is the story of how 100 people recovered. These people were just at the beginning of their journey. They needed to take that first step, or maybe just being there they had.

At the commitment a man approached me who looked very much like our friend Ozzy Osborne. He asked me if I was THE Kathy who chased his girlfriend after the morning meeting we were representing to give her my number. It was and she had called me too. I haven't seen her since but she's doing okay according to him. It was good to hear. I hope she comes back. A man from our morning meeting had shared that his wife was there. She showed up tonight at our meeting. I went to that commitment on no sleep. I had been up since 1 am after going to the air force base to greet some troops coming home. If I was drinking I never would have been able to do that. No way, no how. I am grateful for that. I am grateful that I don't have to do this again. I am grateful that God is in my life.

Tonight a bit of my past showed up at the meeting as well. I think I shared the story here about one of my drunks, jumping off a deck with a bunch of kids from the kitchen where I was working into snowbanks in the middle of the night. Well one of those kids showed up at the meeting tonight. It took us a few minutes to remember each other but we did. He grew up. I remember asking him to teach my little boy to skateboard. He told me skateboarding led to drugs. He was joking at the time but apparantly for him it did. And there I was a 30 something old woman jumping off of decks with him. He was probably all of 17, if that. I'm glad he was there tonight and I hope I see more of him. We talked about a few people we worked with that should probably be with us as well.

I have become very close to these last months to a woman whose heart was breaking tonight because she misses her son so. And he misses her which breaks her heart even more. She is in a sober house and her son is with her parents. She has been working so hard to stay sober and get her life back. She has more to do and my heart was breaking too. I hope I was able to console her just a bit. She is a good mother but sometimes the sentiment this too shall pass just isn't enough. I heard recently that tears melted the ice around your heart and her shell was definately breaking. I will pray that she can find comfort.

Another woman I have gotten close to slipped again this weekend. Her husband emailed me asking for help. I was able to suggest alanon to him thanks to what I have learned from Syd and the alanon woman who attends our morning meeting. I called another woman and we went to their house to try to do a 12th step call but they never came to the door. We slipped alanon info under the door and a note to our friend. She called me later and I brought her to the morning meeting today. He said I could give his number to the alanon member of our group. Both she and her husband came to the meeting tonight.

Our speaker tonight was celebrating his 46th anniversary. It was good to hear his story. Usually we just hear his booming voice. He is what you call a powerful example. Big Time! Even played backgammon with Bill W. Said he scared the you know what out of him. And this guy is big. His message is that service is what has kept him sober all these years.

There was a lot going on these last few days. And I am a grateful recovering alcoholic though I'll probably just stick to alcoholic.