I just sat here and really thought about what it really means to me. I can not help but just well up with tears.
2192 days of continuous sobriety.... is 6 years. Today is a very important day because it celebrates the day that I was brought back from the dead. It celebrates the day that my entire life changed and an entire new world opened right in front of me.
I was thinking about it earlier today and talking to a friend about how I really didn't think that 6 years was that big of a deal. I was thinking back on my 4th sobriety birthday and how I really didn't think that it was that special. I was looking forward to my 5 year birthday that would come the year after. That was a really big one.... but every single on of them are big. Every single second of every single day is nothing short of a miracle.
Right now I am just filling up with a whole bunch of different feelings... but the word that keeps coming into my head is gratitude. I feel so much gratitude right now.. for so many different things. Gratitude was something that I don't think that I ever really knew the true meaning of before I started this journey 6 years ago. Now it is something that is so ingrained in me that I know that I cannot live without it.
So many different things have crossed my way in the last 6 years that have guided me along this path. Thats the way that this thing works. The people and the places that dictate your path . All of the faces and phrases that filled the Carriage House at the Beacon House.. and the Fellowship Hall in Downtown Monterey.... and to the Vista Lobos room in Carmel will always guide me wherever I go.
I never would have imagined that I would get sober... it a 7am meeting in Carmel, California. I would be at that meeting... everyday at 7am..... because that was what was suggested. Good Morning never felt so good as it did in Carmel.
All that I knew was that I was willing to do anything to not feel the way that I was feeling. I wanted to not feel like I wanted to die.. all the time. I had no idea what was happening and I didn't know what to do. I was so very scared and the only way that I could picture relief was through my own death. I knew that I really didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I knew that there was something more for me then wasting my life away in 6 am bars and dirty gutters. I was 28 years old.. and I was not done yet.
Recovery is the most amazing thing on the planet. Really it is. There is nothing that is more powerful then someone admitting that they need help and reaching their hand out for that help. There is something so amazing about the people who reach out their own hand to hold on to those people. It makes me teary eyed just thinking about it. There is nothing more powerful on this earth... then one booze hound alcoholic all-star reaching his or her hand out to another who knows EXACTLY what that person is going through.
I didn't want anyones help when I was in that spot... but that all changed when I was forced into that position. When I almost met my maker... a weeee bit too early. I was brought to my knees and I had to make a pretty simple choice. Do you want to live or die, Rich.. black or white. I would try to do all that I could do to try to figure my way out of it without having to make the choice. There must be someway that I can keep doing this. Can't I just dry out?... and maybe just drink wine on the weekends?
I tried a little research... I relapsed and was right back where I started. That is what it took to make me truly admit to my innermost self... that I was an alcoholic. I was one of those people that booze just did not get along with. I had lost the privilege to drink like a gentleman.
I came back to the peninsula and knew what I had to do. It was really pretty easy. There were a lot of people who had done it before. They knew what they were doing. I had not idea what the hell that I was doing... so I just did what they did. This is how the program works. Its really not rocket science. The program was designed so that any old drunk could make the easy decision of a spiritual life over an agonizing alcoholic death.
I am really glad that I made that decision... or that the decision was made for me and that decision stuck. I cant imagine where I would be if I did not walk into Dana's office at the Beacon House.. at 8:30am... on February 26th of 2008.That is why this post will be published exactly 6 years to the day.
Death would have taken me... and I would have never have been given the opportunity to share my experiences with you in this blog.
My name is Richie... and I am a grateful, bright, sparkly, joyful alcoholic.
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