Heck!!! Here
I go. I’ve finally arrived at one whole flipping year sober!!! Who would
have ever thought!! Not me, thats for sure!
Looking back
it has been both hard and easy at the same time. The hardest thing was the
decision......that took a good 40 years!! hahaha.... but once made, I am stuck
with it so to speak, or at least I hope so. So then it is just the not so
simple little matter of getting on with it. It is rather a shock to find that I
am not quite how I believed myself to be. Who knew that I am actually quite shy
sometimes, and happy to be a home body, that that great restlessness within me
can be quelled in other ways than drinking myself silly, talking my head off,
and being eternally ready for any drinking session, any time and for any reason
at all, or no reason at all!
I never look
at drunk people with disdain because I know they are having a good time in the
moment, and I fully remember how that was once me. I don't look at them with
pity because I know I would have hated to be pitied for having all the great
fun happy laughing times I have had pissed! I look at them with
knowledge. That one day some of them will probably choose to face up to
their own problem, that deep inside there is a fear in many of their own
dependence, and for the notoriously drunk ones, that tomorrow they will be
surfing the great wave of remorse!
I try never
to allow myself to feel disgust when I smell it on people's breath, it is just
what alcohol smells like, and it’s not as bad as sardines! I remember (or
not)! the thousands of conversations I've had in loud places, getting right in
someone's ear with booze, tobacco and probably garlic on my breath as well! No one ever told me my breath stunk. Even drunk people are gracious and have many
qualities, and I will remember that.
Looking
forward, I am not afraid of the life I will have if I remain committed to the
straight and narrow (not so narrow at all actually). There is much abundance
out there for me that I haven't even tapped into yet, coz I'm deliberately a bit slow with
the inner growth. I don't search for it
any more, I just allow it to come to me bit by bit in it's own good time.
Slowly but surely that is happening, and I am becoming.
I am far more
afraid of the life I will have if I do not stay committed. I would have a hell of a lot more fun, for
sometimes false and short lived periods of time. I
would have an active social life once more, with people who are mainly with me
coz I'm great fun to drink with. I would
laugh more and talk more and dance more and meet lots more people. But I wouldn't have the quiet contentment and
growing peace inside of me that comes from knowing I am living my life how I am
meant to. I wouldn't have the certainty
that there is a great connection out there somewhere that will find me when the
time is right. That sounds stupid but I
know it is true, because I have so much in me I want to give, that it would be
very wasteful if that energy does not connect and lift the spirit of another worthy
soul. And hey, if it's wishful thinking,
then there's always the future grandchildren whom I long to adore.
It has been
quite a lonely year in many ways, the adjustment to not having my nightly
companion in a glass (or 10), my daughter leaving home, my son away building a lot, the end of a kind and
companiable realtionship with a good hearted lovely man. As a result of all
this I’m spending more time alone than I've ever spent in my life. After a very
busy life, marriage, children, end of marriage, single parenting, house full of
teens, then two long relationships, running busy businnesses through all of
that, Hell it is about time I spent some time alone. So that is how I am looking at it, time for
me. Time to heal and time to grow, so the rest of my life can be time to
give and share and love and laugh and be happy.....and SOBER!!! Bring it
on.......and all the cool people are getting sober these days…..so pretty soon
I won’t feel like a freak!!! hahaha
