9/29 Catalina Island

It is just a few days away from the first of October and officially my birthday month. I have not had a drink since 10/23/2002. Simply fucking amazing. I am looking forward to celebrating the whole month. Birthdays have always been important to me but also somehow egotistical to celebrate for the whole month but it is the way “we” do it. This year I guess it will be even more important to celebrate the month since I am not likely to be at more than a small number of meetings. I hope I stumble into a meeting that does coins because I would love to have my 8yr coin to slide into my life jacket. I have one there already from a friend. It seemed like the prefect place to keep a coin. I no longer own a jewelry box but then again my jewelry box has contained so many coins – AA, NA, treatment center, 24hr coins, plastic fobs, in all my years of success and failure I have always kept my coins. Then we left for good and out went the jewelry box and out when the old coins and mementos.

My birthday month is always a good time to look back and take stock, an inventory of sorts to see where I stand. My numerous failures at recovery have often left me wishing and wondering about the lost years. I tried to add up my sober time while laying in bed recently. Not all in a row mind you but some how since 1983 I have managed to be sober a total of approximately 19 yrs.

19 out of 27 sounds pretty good but it discounts the seven years of hell I have willingly volunteered for again and again. Plus it completely disregards the years than led up to the moment I was first told I was an alcoholic and an addict. I can still remember being admitted to Care Unit of Kirkland. It was all rather hoity toity. They brought orange juice to my bedside table, had a pickle ball court and lovely grounds that i could only stare at while they stuck me in “Jammie Land” for three days of detox.

I was lost and alone, scared and I knew nothing about addiction, recovery or AA. When they did my intake asking me dozens of questions about my past “use” it seemed ludicrous. After all didn’t everyone start using cocaine at 15? Didn’t everyone drink hard liquor by the bottle? So what that I ended up flying off a cliff in a Chevy Malibu the first time I used coke? Whats 40days in traction? Doesn’t every ones friends sneak into the hospital through the ER to help them get stoned while stuck there in that bed? Didn’t everyone drink and use like me.

They told me then I was an early late stage alcoholic. Me? OK,OK, OK, so maybe there was a problem and maybe I needed to quite all those hard drugs. But hell, I had only been drinking legally for less than a year. Surely I could learn to drink like a lady. It never occurred to me that I would have a problem staying clean. After all they made it sound pretty simple. One day at a time. Go to these weird and strange meetings full of ~ugh~ old people and everything will be fine. I didn’t make it 6 months.

Well, hopefully I am able now to see the futility of every thinking that a drink wont hurt me. Two nights ago we were in Twin Harbors. We had just finished dinner at an outdoor restaurant/bar. We had been there before and it was pretty benign. That evening though as i stood in line to get a refill on my diet coke i watched as the bar tender poured a drink. One of those thick, icy drinks. He topped it with whip cream then a floater of Kahlua, a sprinkle of nutmeg and a cherry. I suspect if i could have seen my face in a mirror i would have looked mesmerized, mouth half open, eyes sort of dull and staring as the bartender poured. I snapped out of it in a heart beat and returned to our table.

Now we have had several meals here and it has never hit me this way before. But looking around I saw most of the tables full, everyone else was drinking, Sunday football was on the tv screens and everyone else seemed to be having a great time in the noise and the "fun" of the place. I just quietly said to Bill......"this place is a little too bary can we head back to the boat? So we did. The thing about this that is important for me to look at is that there will be a lot of places I go as we travel along where I need to make a choice. I already know that its not good for me to hang out in slippery places. At home i followed some simple things. I dont order food cooked with alcohol. I dont eat in the bar- I can always wait for a table and I dont hang out with people who drink unless I have a good legitimate reason for being there and even then I always try to plan an out if i need to. After so long maybe you would think it should be easier and your right for the most part I just dont worry about it because I am just not around it.

But this is a new way of life and I will be constantly confronted with new people places and things. For me alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful. I have no misconceptions. I know that my disease is waiting patiently for me wherever I go. My right mind knows what to do and how to do it calmly and easily. But that is not enough..because sometimes I am not in my right mind.

So it helps to talk about it and it helps to look at it clearly. Plus i went to a meeting last night. Embraced once again into the fold. When I explained what that drink looked like and what my mind went through in that mili second everyone in the room was nodding and um hu-ing. That is where I am at home and where I find the wisdom to remember that it has been a long time since my last drink.

Thanks for listening, hugs, kat