Last week I was reminded how precious life is and how I should continue to strive for living day-to-day instead of dwelling on the past or being preoccupied with the future. I was involved in a single car accident last week that I was very lucky to walk away from unharmed along with the other passengers in the vehicle. Hydro -planening off the highway in a heavy downpour found us leaving the roadway into a ditch and through a secondary guard rail there for protection against going down and embankment toward the river. By the grace off God it stopped the vehicle feet away from going down the slope and undoubtedly causing great harm to us. The reason I mention this is because I was dealing with a lot of anxiety for a couple of days after about what might have been. In a way the whole incident has been a blessing in terms of reminding me to live in the present and make the best of what comes my way. In doing so the anxiety of is being lifted as I pass that accident site, which is on my daily drive home. I can know that this is all because of God and how grateful I should be and what a blessing each day of sobriety brings. My goal now is to reach out to my family, who live across country, on a daily basis in some fashion if only to say hello and let them know I am always thinking of them. In addition I need to practice saying ” I love you ” more often to all those whom i am blessed to share my life with these sober days. I believe in doing so I can continue to share precious memories if even by only telephone…..May God protect you and allow you to live day by day in sobriety so that you may be able to create precious memories as I am trying to do.
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Slippery Places
In an earlier blog, “Temptation”, I mentioned the importance I try to place on avoiding slippery places: the places that involve alcohol in some manner. Well, I am very good about identifying those places and avoiding them but I sometimes make mistakes which could be detrimental to my sobriety. Just the other day , against my better judgement found myself in two situations I should have avoided. The first being a grocery store that I do not frequent that often. I was looking for soda and in this store it happened to be in the aisle with alcohol. Instead of just avoiding the aisle, like my gut told me, I entered the area anyway. As minor as that may sound I must always remember that the protection against drinking should always be of most importance.
Now I want to share a very poor decision that I made just the other day. I went to a local family restaurant to place a “to go” order for lunch. As I approached the to go area I was soon greeted by a young woman who said she would take my order at the bar when I was ready. My first thought was to say I would like to place my order here at the counter but I did not. Instead I approached the bar and had a seat. My order was taken and she gave me a soda to drink. Now I didn’t have any thought about drinking, as I watched the overhead TV. However the danger was in that this used to be the same chain variety restaurant and bar the I would frequent in my darkest days of drinking. I usually found myself opening the bar at 11 am and being drunk by noontime while holding back tears from despair over my life. As I stated in my book, ” I was an alcoholic on display on any given bar stool.” This could have been devastating, In addition I did not even pray to God for his protection nor did I remind my self that ” I don’t have to live that way anymore” , with regards to my drinking lifestyle, as I always do when alcohol is in my sight. You see, I was blinded by the power of my disease. I must not make this mistake ever again. Even though I did not pray at the bar I now God was with me. God saved me that day but I must always remember to do my part of avoiding those “slippery places” at all cost. If I don’t my sobriety could be in jeopardy. Thanks for reading my blog. May God bless you always.
Monster Inside
On October 31, 2003 I locked the monster inside me. I am referring to the disease of alcoholism. How ironic that it was Halloween day that is my sobriety date. I have heard it said that the beast inside me is just waiting to be released. It is waiting for resentment , fear or hate, among other feelings, to eat at my soul to the point that I take a drink and let it out. For me that means going back to my old drinking patterns and way of thinking. I know I would get drunk right away and be back where I left off in 2003; crying, paranoid, suicidal, begging God to let me die and unlikely that I could find my way back to sobriety. By the grace of God those feelings have never been so strong that I have been tempted to drink. For me with my faith and devotion to prayer i have been able to ask that negative feelings be removed from my thinking and to just let things go. I have to do this to protect my life and the relationships that took a long time to rebuild. May you find a way to lock the monster inside you and for those in recovery have the belief that God can help you keep your monster there.