Friday, July 31, 2009

Honey's, I'm Home.

What your body is doing is a reflection of what your life is about. July 31 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 186
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I am sooooooooooooo glad to be home. The time with Rosalie was wonderful, she is coming along very well. However, I was so out of touch with the world, you have no idea how up todate the news in Beaumont - Silsbee can be. Lordy, it will take me forever to catch up. I am so looking forward to the Saturday Night Speaker meeting at Lambda and dinner with the bunch before the meeting. I neeeeeed a good dose of fellowship with my alkie friends.
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So I am off to bed and so thankful that I can share my gratitude list with y'all.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my lovable schnauzer
  • My sponsor
  • Home, sweet home.
  • My fellow Floridian blogger is blogging.
  • Rosalie's successful surgery.
  • 12 hours of serenity.
  • All y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Good news.

The people who make a living doing what they love are the people who insist on doing so. July 22 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 169
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Good news tonight regarding Rosalie. She had the surgery late this afternoon and all went well. I am leaving about 10 AM tomorrow to go over to Silsbee for a few days. No computer so no posting until I get back home which will probably be Tuesday of next week.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my schnauzer
  • My Sponsor - such support from a man who is going through his own health problems.
  • Prayers from all y'all.
  • My third Al-Anon meeting tonight with 55 attendees. Very good shares and so many of my own concerns were covered by those that shared. I have found another home.
  • My needs are met.
  • Friends
  • Grand nephew Colton.
  • Success for Rosalie
  • The guidance her surgeon received.
  • My Faith
  • All Y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

All Better Now.

Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy with expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. July 21 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 19
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Just love today's CWG. SO true. Yesterday I was in fear, today I am in gratitude. Talked with Sam and Rosalie had her bronchocomy today and it was negative. Now that is just what I had prayed for and I know a lot of y'all did also. Tomorrow she will have her surgery. It is not an invasive surgery, but done with needles and camera. If all goes well she will go home on Friday or Saturday. I am going over on Thursday and will be there for a few days. God is good.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my schnauzer
  • My Sponsor ( I better call him tomorrow)
  • Being sighted.
  • My Right Eye
  • Being able to accept the ups and downs with the Left eye.
  • Prayers and comments from y'all
  • Friends
  • Just got a message from Steve E. will read when finished with this post.
  • All y'all.

Now y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Loss, Illnesses, and Spirituality

The soul leads you to the right and perfect opportunities for you to experience exactly what you had planned to experience. What you actually experience is up to you. July 20 Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 174
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Damned I'm glad to be sober.But one thing about being sober that I hear from so many other sober people is that they can be there for their relative going thru a rough spot, illness, death, etc. I was there for my Mother even through my drinking. She lived with me for the last 18 years of her life. She was well, she was sick, she was hospitalized, - over and over again. When she was diagnosed with Oat cell Carcinoma (lung cancer) I was with her. I was always with her for her Dr. visits. At times before the cancer, my employer let me take two hours for lunch to go to the hospital to see that she ate and the same thing for the nursing home and I extended my day by one hour in the evening. Never in the morning - hangover - but evening. I stopped by the hosp. to visit for a couple of hours after work and then went home and got half sloshed and then went to the bar to finish up getting drunk. I was very fortunate that I was not needed at night. If so "I would not have been there."During all of her illnesses I was there for her during waking hours. When she was diagnosed with the cancer and it was described to her as small cell carcinoma, she thought it was just a little bit of cancer. She never understood that it was terminal. Or did she, it would have been just like her to say it not so bad to try to keep me from worrying. The week she died my partner and I took 5 days to go to our mountain cabin for a much needed time out. I called her twice a day at the nursing home. I talked to her the morning she died, I was coming home so that I could take her to her chemo treatment. I was walking out the door and the phone rang. Vic answered it and called me to say it was Dr. Pinsky. He told me that Mother had died at noon. She was having lunch and just slumped over into her plate and that was it. I just started to scream and he yelled at me - calm down Zane - she went well, had she lived she was going to be so much worse. I stopped and listened. She died at the right time in the progress of the disease. I got through that, got the funeral arrangements done etc. and then I just got stinking drunk. I was fine for the funeral and reception after. That night I got sloshed again and was mostly sloshed for the next few days. Then just went back to my regular drinking habits. I still look back at that and wonder why I did not just fall off the deep end and just stay drunk. When I think about it, I know it was God that got me through that time as he has during all of the low times in my life. In sobriety I can look back and see that he was doing for me what I could not do for myself. I just was not aware of it. Today, as a sober member of AA I am very aware of Him being with me and helping me through the lows of my life.
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Today is the 25th anniversary of my second oldest sister's death. She died of brain cancer on her 60th birthday. I never really got to know her. The last time I saw her was when I was 15 and my sisters' father died. Her name was Dorothy Evelyn and we called her Rockie. Their last name was Rochelle. I grieved over Rockie, mostly over what never was. Mother had not seen nor talked with her since 1952. Mother was just numbed by her death, cried some, but she had really buried her in her mind years before, but always held out hope.
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This past week my sister Rosalie has been in the hospital in Beaumont, TX. She has advanced COPD with 45% lung capacity. She is in there because of severe back pain. As I noted last week, they have discovered several compound fracture in her lower back and she had been cleared by all her doctors for surgery this week, but they were doing an MRI to be sure there was not anything missed. I talked to Rosalie this afternoon and she was really down. This is so unlike her. She wasn't maudlin, but just upset because the MRI found lesions on her lungs. This I did not expect. Damned my Mother died of lung cancer, my sister Rockie died of brain cancer, and I just thought it is just not right to lose Rosalie to cancer also. Then she told me they were doing a bronchoscopy tomorrow to see if the lesions were malignant. Now I had just in the span of two seconds had her with cancer. I told her I would be over ASAP and she said "Wait until after the test." I want you here, but wait. So we talked for a few more minutes and she said she was tired and we said our love you's and goodbye and hung up.
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I immediately went to the internet and looked up lung lesions. There are a multitude that are not cancerous. It could be scarring from the COPD, or numerous types of pneumonic lesions, which are treatable but not necessarily terminal. This was good news to me. My plan right now is to go over there this Wednesday, hopefully to be with her for her surgery. We should know by tomorrow evening. I have hope, I have my faith that whatever happens is beyond my control. Whatever happens, God will get me through. He always has, and I know He won't change now.
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I wrote this because I know that several of us have health issues with family members or have just gone through them. And we are and have all done so with a strong belief in our Higher Power. It did not take me to become sober to have a higher power, it just took me to get sober to have a spiritual relationship with my Higher Power. And I feel that power in my whole self. Spiritual sobriety ROCKS.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie my schnauzer
  • My Sponsor
  • My Right Eye
  • Strength to accept current status of my Left Eye.
  • Being Sighted
  • Never doubting that I can get through anything Sober no matter what. Some of you have proved this to me over and over again.
  • That Wanda and I reconnected after 45 + years.
  • A fabulous evening at the Lambda Talent Show this past Sat night.
  • Sat dinner with Daave, RIck, John, Norris.
  • All y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

And then there was none.

There are a million aspects to Me. A billion. A trillion. You see? There is the profane and the profound, the lesser and the larger, the hollow and the holy, the ghastly and the Godly. July 17 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 173
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I am indeed saddened by the announcement late Friday that one of the great ICON's of the 20th Century, WALTER CRONKITE, died at the age of 92. Cronkite was just always there with the news. Real News. That does not exist today. He was a real ICON. He was an influence on the way America
was and is. I will never forget his announcement of the passing of JFK. His Vietnam coverage. His landing on the moon coverage. Those are just three of the fine examples of his reporting that are burned into my memory. There will never be another person that can possibly take his place of even come close to it. The changes that have come down the pike have taken that position away. We now have 24 hour news, the WWW, Twitter, Utube, and all the other stuff that just blabber 24 hours a day. Walter Cronkite has left a huge emptiness in the world as if a "thousand lights went out." I feel so blessed to have had my life touched by such a remarkable person He will be missed.
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On another note, Rosalie is back in the hospital due to extreme back pain. I talked with both she and Sam this afternoon. She has had bad lower back pain for awhile and was worsened during the severe constipation of late. She went in yesterday and x-rays show several complex fractures in her lower back. She was to have an MRI late this afternoon and has been cleared for surgery for next week. With her COPD she will be on a ventilator during and after surgery and it will be removed when she shows she can breath on her own. One of the major side effects is that she may not come off of the ventilator. But as she says, there's not much choice and she has the faith that all will be well. So, one more time I am asking for prayers from y'all. Sure are a lot of with loved ones on these prayer lists. Aren't we blessed with friends that lovingly give time for this in their prayers? Isn't this one of the best perks of being in recovery? HELL YES.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my schnauzer
  • My Sponsor who is getting out and around.
  • My right eye.
  • Being sighted.
  • A surprise Dinner with Daave this evening.
  • The beauty of distant storm clouds south of Houston this evening.
  • All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Today's a good Day, Good News.

Belief in God produces belief in God's greatest gift--unconditional love--and God' greatest promise--unlimited potential. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 44
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Hi y'all. Today has been a better day than the last few days. I wonder if it had anything to do with the call I made to my Dr.s office at 4 PM. I had xrays last week for my lungs and they were supposed to let me know something by yesterday. I was aggravated that I had to make that call, but then I am also grateful that God gave me the good sense to follow up when I need to do so. We after a few minutes of wrestling with their damned phone system I finally got a live person - they do exist is some Doctor's offices - and was promptly transferred to a voice mail for the PA. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR God got me through this without me leaving a scathing memo, and she called me back after 5 PM. The news is that my lungs are CLEAR. What a picker upper. ONe more time my faith and God have taken over and gotten me through my self-imposed rough patch. One would think that by this time I would not be such a fretter, but I am, no where near as bad as I used to be, but it is still there. I'm blessed with being able to see the difference.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my schnauzer
  • My Sponsor
  • My Right Eye (i always think of PG when i post this)
  • Cobwebs clearing in my Left eye.
  • Being sighted.
  • Breathing
  • That Sat nite I will get to share in the miracle of Scott W's new showing.
  • All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Just Today

Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation on the physical plane, thoughts rooted in love will produce another. The masters are those who have chosen only love. In every instant. In every moment. In every circumstance. July 14 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 57

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Today I am grateful for:

  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my OCD schnauzer
  • My Sponsor
  • Having all that I need
  • Adapting to financial change
  • Bitterness against "them" subsiding
  • My Right eye
  • Adjusting to cobwebs in left eye, again.
  • Strength from my faith
  • Never acting on my desire to be in the afterlife.
  • Getting through the day no matter what.
  • Friends
  • Restraint of tongue, written word, and actions.
  • All y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Nada Tonight.

Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another course. July 10 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" age 4
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Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wednesday - Good ole Hump Day

When you are in your God space, you know and understand that all you are now experiencing is temporary. I tell you that heaven and earth shall pass away, but you shall not. July 7 - (7/8/9) - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 116
Just a bit of humor:
7/8/9 - Conan O'Brian - Oscar Mayer died, his funeral will be "OPEN BUN"
7/8/9 Nothing else humorous, just love writing 7/8/9.
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Hey, bada bing bada boom. How the hell are all my alkie and other friends? What a day. Nothing special, just a day with getting up at 1:57 PM, Movie at 3:25 (Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs) funny but not as good as the first two. Lambda 6:30 PM - Double Winners meeting. It's an alanon meeting with a special outreach for the alcoholic. It's in it's second week and tonight's meeting had 58 attendees. It was also my first Al-anon meeting. Yes I had read about Alanon, have friends in Al-anon, heard about how it can help you with relationships (my take was partners) but tonight in listening to the Alanon purpose and the sharing: the light came on - all relationships. DUH! Sometimes I am so dense - OK OK I will lighten up on myself. I am planning to attend more of these, at least the next 4, as this is a 6 week session at the end of which will be a group conscience as to whether or not to keep it as a regular meeting. My take after one meeting -YES!
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Syd can you shed some light on why it is recommended that one attends 6 consecutive Alanon meetings?
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God
  • Sobriety
  • Mamie
  • Sponsor
  • being Sighted
  • Support
  • Friends
  • New Horizons
  • All Y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Pins and Needles for the next few DAYS!

Obedience is not creation, and thus can never produce salvation. Obedience is a response, while creation is pure choice, undictated, unrequired. July 7 - Meditations from "Conversation's with God Book 1" Page 175
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Hey there my alkie friends. Hope all had a wonderful weekend. Even in sobriety it seems as though some of us had too much week left at the end of our weekend.
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Saw my endocrinologist today, sugar is doing much better but there is a problem with my chest xray. They did them over because there is a cloudy area at the bottom of my right lung. And if this xray doesn't show it more clearly, it will be a CATscan. What really pisses me off is the dr. forgot to tell me and he had left so the PA explained it to me. I heard lung problem and just went to a spasm of thoughts. She must have recognized this because she took my hand and told me it looked more like fluid buildup rather than a tumor. Shit she used the T word. I'm trying to just be CALM. Not to project, we learn that in this program. It will be what it will be. Have I ever mentioned that I am a worrywart. I need to 417/449, I have to turn the outcome over to the care of God. Again, one more time my faith has taken over and will keep me centered . I have to realize that I am not in control. I will just have to remember I will find out soon. In God's time, not mine. And of course one of the concerns I have is the expense of these damned tests, the co-pays ya know. There's not much more that I can give up to afford these things reading Pam's Monday post reminded me that I can still do my movies just give up the damned popcorn. Movies without popcorn? It could happen.
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Tomorrow is 7/8/9. It will be another 100 years before that will happen again.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my OCD schnauzer (my little love dog)
  • My Sponsor - A Real Winner.
  • My right eye
  • My left eye is recovering from whatever from Sat night.
  • Being sighted.
  • Faith that sustains me.
  • Memories of the most gorgeous sunsets in LA, both from the beach, from the skyscrapers, and from the mountains.
  • Friends
  • All y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Just another weekend.

When life is lived from a standpoint of damage control or optimum advantage, the true benefit of life is forfeited. The opportunity is lost. The chance is missed. For a life lived thusly is a life lived from fear. July 5 Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 130
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Hi my alkie friends. Hope all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was rather nondescript. Stayed home except for Saturday dinner with Daave, Rick, and John C. That's always a good start of an evening of sobriety. Then we went to the Saturday Night Live speaker meeting at Lambda. A woman, Laura L., whom I absolutely adore, spoke. She was not the scheduled speaker, but was ready in a moments notice. I first knew Laura when I moved to Houston in August 2004. She was having a hell of a time staying sober. In and out, always broken and in tears. This gal was not one that used the doors flippantly like a turnstile, she just could not get sober. Then in 2005 she took a Desire Chip and it worked. I have witnessed the change in her. From a look and aura of despair to a woman with a gleam in her eye and an aura of gratitude. She is truly a miracle and I am so privileged to have witnessed the change and the growth. She only talked for 25 minutes, but it was a 25 minutes packed with quality. I just love those.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, my Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my OCD schnauzer
  • My Sponsor
  • My Right eye
  • Being accepting of a problem with my left eye that started last evening.
  • My blood sugar at 198 this AM, down from 267 yesterday and down to 109 before dinner tonight. The new meds are kicking in - in God's time, not mine.
  • Acceptance
  • Living in the United States Of America
  • Friends
  • All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Just another Day

Your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience--wanting-- in your reality. The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude. July 2 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 11
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Hey there my alkie bunch. How the hell has your day gone? I had a good day. Started and ended it sober. No drama. Talked with Rosalie, and told her I may not come over for the w/e. I told I just did not feel good and did not want to do the drive but would let her know for sure tomorrow. She was disappointed but understood. I mean I've been over there twice in the last 3 weeks. I love her dearly and I will miss my niece and her 24 yr old son, but I'm just staying home. I'll call her tomorrow and tell her. And I know she'll say Well maybe you can come over Sat morning. It's great to be loved and to be wanted. We've had our rough patches, some have lasted for years, but now they just last a few days or weeks.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God, My Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my OCD schnauzer. (Sighted a cat and a squirrel in the back yard this afternoon-might neer ate her way through the glass french door. She raises so much hell trying to get out, they are always long gone before I can open the screen. I love her so and she is so comforting.)
  • My Sponsor - talked to him today.
  • My eyes - continued improvement in the left.
  • No longer holding on to anger at my family.
  • Friends
  • All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Newcomer Blues

I do not make a judgement about the creations that you conjure, I simply empower you to conjure more--and more and more and more. July 1 - Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 118
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Hey my alkie friends. You know sometimes as I'm reading others blogs, which I usually do before posting, I just don't have a clue about what I am going to post Tonight was one of them and then I read Findon's post and I knew what I needed to write about. Please know, I don't think I am being judgemental just the facts.
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Saturday afternoon as we were all gathering and waiting for everyone to get there, some of us were in the lobby at Lambda and there was this newcomer with 5 months sobriety. She was just going on and on about hoping she would make it through Pride without drinking. After about the 4th or 5th time she said this I gently told her to quit using the word hoping and use I will make it through Pride without drinking.Then she started about going out with her using and drinking friends and she was the designated driver. She also said she was looking forward to seeing and being with them since she had not seen them since she got sober and that they always led her down the path. Someone else told her that was not the smartest way to stay sober, to go out with people that enabled her to "slip." She retorted, well, I feel I have a solid foundation with 5 months (yeah right girl) but I'm a bit worried though because I have never celebrated while sober. I just hope I can make it. I just wanted to shake the shit out her and scream quite planning your slip. I wish now I had. As the evening progressed we got decorated and into our position to wait for the parade. Yada yada yada - same crap regurgitated, over and over. She came over to me and asked if I could tell her friend Justin where we were. So I told Justin that we were on Marshall one block west of Woodhead. We have a couple of Justin's in the program so that is whom I thought was on their way. A few minutes later I looked over at the young lady and her friend "Justin" as they were sitting on the curb, each with a cigarette in hand and taking a toke off of what looked like weed. I wanted so much to go over and say something and thought better of it as I did not want a scene to ensue. So young lady seemed to be calmer (wonder why) and "Justin" another female left the area. I wasn't the only one that noticed this apparently. She got in the car she was riding in for the parade and off we went at about 9:30. At the end of the parade, her friends were waiting for her and she got out of the car as we turned off of Westheimer. I can only imagine what the rest of the night was like.
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Now I don't know for sure that anything else happened. I just know from other's experiences what usually happens and then if that person is lucky enough to get back to the rooms and share about their experimentation. As for me, no thanks, no time, no place. It took me too damned long to get to these rooms and I am not going to fuck it up no way no how. I like where my head is most days; I like remembering where it was the night before; I like not living in the fog anymore; I like that upon going to bed, I know that I am going to bed and not just pass out somewhere; I like knowing where I am when I wake up. I could go on and on and just have a gratitude list to the moon and back. I like knowing that if I stay sober a day at a time, that each day gets better than the last, and I may say it "Don't get much better than that" but it does. And for that I am grateful.
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Tonight I am grateful for:
  • God My Higher Power
  • My Sobriety
  • Mamie, my OCD schnauzer
  • My Sponsor
  • Listening to "Vincent" playing on my Easy Listening channel on DishNetwork.
  • All of the things in my last paragraph above.
  • Friends
  • My right eye
  • My continually improving left eye
  • Being sighted
  • All y'all

Y'all be pretty now ya heah.