Amends

I made my first amends this weekend to my best friend since high school. Was at her birthday party where she reminded me that the last time we saw each other was at her mother's birthday party in the same venue and where I won drunkest party guest, woo hoo!. She asked me if I was planning on a repeat perfomance and I told her that for just that reason I was no longer drinking. Later that night I pulled her aside and told her that I had been sober for a year, that I had finally admitted that I was an alcoholic and that part of my recovery meant that I needed to apologize to people that I had harmed. I apologized to her for being such a shitty friend and thanked her for sticking by me. She said I wasn't a shitty friend at all...so I said okay, I was a good friend that did shitty things and named just a few while acknowledging that there were many and took responsibility for them. She said that was the best birthday gift she could have received and how thankful she was that I was finally "here". I was able to thank her for being my rock and always being there for me. She was the one I called when I needed someone to check on my mother. She was the one who found my mother and called me to get my ass home. I told her that although it took me some time, my mother's low bottom had become my high bottom. Tears were cried and we left it at that. Hopefully we'll find a more appropriate time to talk but this was enough for now.

I didn't get a chance to make amends to the other person I wanted to . My other friends sister. She's the one who took care of me when I got sick at my friend's wedding. Also I didn't show up for her own wedding mainly because I didn't have a date and I wanted to go out to the bars instead. So I was a noshow. One of those people whose dinner you pay for because they RSVP affirmative but who don't come. But she was way too busy Friday night working on her sister's party and it would have been selfish and self seeking of me to talk to her. This is what I am learning about God's time not mine.

The AA meeting I attended was in the same church hall where I attended many dances when I was in high school. Of course you couldn't attend a dance with out being shitfaced. Tango, Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine, quarts of Bud, joints, tabs of acid, mesc., THC, whatever we could get our hands on we did. And there I was on Saturday afternooon at an AA meeting at the very same hall. Full circle I must say. At the party I went to Friday night I sat with the "boys" that poured me my first drink. They were four years older than me and loved to torture the little girl who lived across the street. I had a huge crush on one of them. Unrequited love. Let's pour her a huge tumbler of Scotch and see what happens, lets push her friends car down the dirt road and see them go crazy, that type of stuff. We did a lot of remember whens. Another guy from my old neighborhood was there as well. I remember when his jaw was broken over some messed up drug deal and had to be wired shut. My "friends" had done it and I wasn't supposed to talk to him but I did anyway. I was good friends with his sister. It doesn't sound like she is doing well. She is living with him, has lost her children, done several stints at rehab. I would have liked to have talked to her but it sounds like she doesn't get invited to parties such as this. Maybe next time I can pay her visit. Let her know we have been trudging the same road. If she's still not sober, maybe help her along a bit. I don't know...She was the "fast" girl my parents didn't want me to hang out with but I did anyway. She's the one who plucked my eyebrows for the first time. She's also the one who had a huge blowout party when her parents went away and got so drunk that she passed out in the bathroom and we couldn't get her pants back on before her parents came home. She was a big girl. Her parents did come home and found her like that.....it was a mess. And it was when my father caught me stealing his valium he had for his back. I didn't know it was valium, it was just a another drug and I didn't care what they were as long as they altered my consciousness. I remember my dad crying then and I think it was the first inkling he ever had that his daughter was one f*d up young lady, well actually quite far from being a young lady. I was the gal who wore work boots, flannel shirts and jeans and hung out in th woods. But that's about all I remember. My childhood is one big haze. Purple haze.

Anyway very grateful for the trip down memory lane but even more grateful to be home and back to my home group and routine. Grateful to be sober and free.