Early Sobriety

Thanksgiving

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I know the holidays are rough for most of us.  But for me it’s the one time a year that I’ve been able to put aside my depression and anxiety and focus on hope. My husband tells me that Christmas lives at my house.  I have a small ranch but I decorate several trees.  There is Christmas in every corner.  That’s not to say that I didn’t have some rough years.

I remember the year I was so mad at my husband, now my ex, that I actually threw the Thanksgiving turkey as it was coming out of the oven.  I’m not proud of that.  There should never be any reason for such a violent reaction.  Alcohol brings to us a myriad of regrets and behaviors that we never thought we were capable of.

The year after that I was six weeks sober and found myself sitting in an aftercare meeting Thanksgiving night.  I remember thinking, “I’ve only got to be among the lowest people on the face of the earth.  How did, I, get here?”

Those were probably my most despondent holidays.  That was 14 years ago.  It’s amazing what a decade brings.  My home is a safe place today.  It’s safe from me.  The holidays are joyous occasions that I get to spend with my five children and their spouses and kids.  I get to bring good memories and set my own traditions.  My grandkids know that I will get them books and they look forward to that.  I paint special ornaments on wood for my kids that they can pass on to their kids after I’m gone.  My Christmases will live on generations after I’m gone.

This year I look forward to spending Thanksgiving with my ex-husband and his wife.  They are family.  We will laugh and share our troubles and dreams and things that we’ve learned.  We will share our gratitude.

Maybe the holidays are horrible for you.  I pray you will wrap yourself in the fellowship of a group of alcoholics and make them your family.  I know a man that has a Christmas breakfast for his alcoholic friends.  He stays in service and takes care of his adopted family of ex-drunks.  He gives the gift of hope.

There are good years and bad years.  But I know one thing for sure, “I’ve have touched the bottom and it is sound.” –John Bunyan

Just for today I will look for those things that I can be Thankful for and remember that there will never be a holiday that a drink won’t make worse.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Someone to Mimic

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been on vacation visiting my family two states away.  I come home feeling a little sad that I probably won’t see my family for another year and strangely at peace and ready to tackle whatever life decides to hand me, life on life’s terms.   I also feel empowered to create the life that I want.  Somehow, going back to my roots and catching up with those I love has grounded me.

It wasn’t always like that.  I used to hold a lot of resentment.  Working the 12 steps helped me to see what my part was in the disintegration of my family relationships.  It also helped me to see my family and parents as human beings with feelings and weaknesses and issues of their own as well as strengths and talents.  My little sister has always been a big part of that as well.  She is an old soul and somehow sees to the truth in all of us.  She’s the first person that really saw me and got who I really was.  I don’t think it was always that she approved of how I thought or my behaviors, but she understood where they were coming from and she approved of me.

I remember when I was drinking I had friends and family tell me that I was drinking too much, that I should grow up and that I was a spoiled brat.  All of that was true but it didn’t really bother me too much and at that point I didn’t care who said it.  I’d just lift up my glass and have another drink at them.  But one day my sister shot me a look that pierced through my heart and down to my soul.  She was standing in her kitchen and she didn’t say much but the look she gave me was half anger and half, “You’re so pathetic.”  I don’t know what she was really thinking but I know my sister well enough to guess.  Whatever it was, I got the message loud and clear even in my drunken fog.  I was clearly out of control.  It was bad enough to warrant the disapproving look from my sister.

When I first got sober, she was probably the only one who believed in me.  There was an acronym WWJD, what would Jesus do?  But I when I was struggling with a life issue or didn’t know what the next right thing to do was I’d say to myself, WWJD.  What would Jennifer do? (I changed the name to protect the innocent.)  Jesus was much too esoteric and unreachable for me in early sobriety and my sister just somehow understood life.  She got it and I didn’t.  Somehow I could figure it out if I put myself in her shoes, so that’s what I did.  Little by little I learned to think like her and after several years and a sponsor my feet were set firmly on the ground.  I go back home when my grip loosens to get re-grounded.

Although our personalities, tastes in cloths and décor and interests are totally different, we seem to share a common thread.  We have the same spiritual bent and similar philosophies of life that we have developed separately but in the same time frame.  We also developed interest in some health products separately but in the same time frame.  It seems that even though distance separates us, there is a matrix of some kind that keeps us connected even when we don’t talk for a while.

My sister tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear.  There is no greater friend.  I have a lot of gratitude for her and for the part she has played in my life and in my sobriety.  She’s my little sister but I look up to her.

I think one of the keys to my sobriety was to have someone that I could look up to and mimic.  I have tried to find people who were smarter, more spiritual, and richer than me to hang out with and to learn from.  I hang out with the winners and somehow that gives me success.

Just for today I will mimic someone I look up to.