You Can Only Live Your Life

I don't even know how I feel right now. Well maybe I do.

Something happened to me a couple of days ago that really disappointed me. It has something that has given me the same reaction almost every single time that I hear it happen. I have heard it so many times since I got sober and I expect to hear it so many times more... but it always sucks when I do hear it.

I am talking about when someone that you love and care about says that they have had a drink. People that are in recovery know what this feels like. When someone says that to you it is almost a shot to your heart.

It always has the same basic feeling to me. There is the initial shock to the system. There used to be some resentment that would creep in there.... and then there was the jealousy that would come.

I just had someone who was very close to me to me that they had been drinking. I was pretty shocked even though I knew that it was very possible with this person. It still sucks though. I knew that there was pretty much nothing that I could do about it either. People have to live their own lives and can only use me to give them advice or let them know about my experience. I can't live their lives for them. This has taken me a long time to realize.

My sobriety date is coming up pretty soon. It is something that is so sacred to me. I will never let anyone or anything take that away from me.

I just have to be there for those people that chose a different path then me. That is all that i can do. I will happily do that for this person. I will be there for them. If they need me.

Sometimes I forget..

Sometime I forget that I am an alcoholic... I mean, not that I want to drink. I think that I am over the whole drinking thing. I don't see myself ever drinking again.. ( or atleast not drinking today). What I am talking about is all of the alcoholic tendencies that I have. These are the old behavior patterns that  I have always had. The reason that I drank in the first place. The resentments that are swirling around me all of the time.
I hadnt been to a meeting in over a month. Maybe over two months I really don't know, but I went to one last week. Everytime that I do go to a meeting I know that is where I am supposed to be. That is the thing that makes me different then others that I know. I have AA with me in my life, because I am an alcoholic. I am proud that I am an alcoholic because it gives me somewhere to go.
I went to a meeting tonight... and I am so glad that I did. One of my friends had gone out about 4 days ago.. and was back in.  I remember during my first year of recovery, when someone went out I would get mad and resentful.. I would think to myself, "how could you go out, you know what is out there. Don't you see how good it is in here." Now, over 3 years later... I am so glad that if they went out... that they are back in, and not dead.

Just in Case I ever Forgot

Sometimes I have these little expances of time when I think that I might be able to go out there again.. and see what the drinking and using world has for me.. these little flickers of my disease are really very short. Thanks to my higher power and some other examples.. I snap out of them quickly.
I heard about some people that have gone out recently.. and seen what the world had for them. Thank God for these people going out there and doing the research for me..
The stories are littered with pain.. anger.. and arrests. Not just little arrests.. but major major arrests.. that will lead to years and years in jail. Basically lives that have been destroyed because of the reemergence of this cunning and baffling disease..
So very glad that I havent gone out like that... I have gone out before, but I knew that I was totally screwed when I was out too far. I knew when I had to reel it back in. If I wouldnt of dont that, I know that I would be in jail or I would be dead.

Glad that I am not dead.. and that I am here on a Sunday. Writing to you all..