Winter is over, and tomorrow marks the official start of my
promotion, full-time hours for most of the permanent workers at the club, and
an end to a tough season financially. Who knew buying a new car and home in the
same year would be so burdensome?
Winter was tough, and although I had more time off than
usual, I failed to complete any of the tasks I had envisioned finishing in the
three-month personal recession. Realistically, I still haven’t even started any of the projects I wanted to,
except for tearing down some wood paneling in the basement which I plan to
replace with drywall—or sheetrock. Actually, I still don’t know the difference,
so I will Google that post haste. I also don’t know what that means.
So, I’ll paraphrase here and say that Sheetrock is to
drywall what Kleenex is to tissue. So, that mystery is solved. Posthaste is
actually one word and it means with great
speed or immediacy. So, I used two terms correctly without knowledge of
their meanings. I must be smarter that I let on.
Here I’ve gone on again without any real meaning or idea for
an actual blog post. I would love to write about how much I’ve been working
with other addicts and alcoholics lately, but it’s been a month since I took a
meeting into a facility so I should really get back on that. Nothing can
compare to the feeling I get when I leave a facility where men with whom I have
so much in common are learning that there is hope. I am inspired by their
courage, and amazed by their strength. And, I am fascinated that some people
are able to stick with it when they have every right to leave. Some people are
able to recover without being locked in a cage. I tried many times, and I guess
the lock and key was the trick for me.
Many of the men I see in institutions will not succeed. Many
of them—about 80%--will not stay sober for a year. The numbers get better after
that, but overall, about 14% of people who attempt sobriety will stay sober
forever. After five years, your chance of relapse is about 15% which is pretty
good. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I have a significant anniversary
coming up in a couple months, and I have so much in my life I want to keep, I
think I will keep the streak alive.
I know that I will live with my addiction forever, and I
always have to keep things in check. I know that I don’t want to lose
everything again, but it is possible. I have to fight my brain on occasion when
I think about my future. I would love to try some of these new fancy beers they
have everywhere. But I know I would want to try them all, and possibly in one
night. Then the next night, then the next morning, then every day until it’s
all black. Then it’s all gone. All of them; all of it. It looks like a quick
process in just that sentence, but I can assure you it is a long, agonizing
process in which, little by little, I start to lose the wonderful little pieces
to my beautiful puzzle I have been assembling in this four years, nine months,
and five days. I will become fractured, despondent, and I will run and hide
from anybody that would try to help me. It’s all very possible, but not when I
work with others.
When I show others the solution I have found, I see light. Something
in me heals when I help others without being selfish. I have the ability to
stay sober every day because of people that were in this program before me, and
it goes on and on, back to 1935. All it takes is two people in a room talking
about the problem to be considered a meeting, but the more you fill a room up,
the more love you can feel. The more love you feel, the more you heal.
I will never be done doing what I do. I will always want to
help the sickest, drunkest, most dishonest people still alive. Because in them I
see me; I see hope. I see the light.
