Better today.

April 15 - True Masters are those who have chosen to make a life, rather than a living. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 60

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Slept like a log last night. I'm sure that the anticipation of the injections, the 3 hours sleep the night before all contributed to the fact that I slept from 12:30 AM until 1:30 PM today without interruption. My eye felt 100% percent better than when I went to bed. My sight in the left eye is blurry, but I do not see the distortions that I did before. Time will tell. Also gone is the problem with focus. It is supposed to be better each day. And as a good alcoholic I also know it will be in God's time, not mine.

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I got some things done today that I have needed to do for weeks. I got two tubs of wash done. I sorted out my "to be washed stack" (its huge), and sorted from that the things to go to the cleaners.(30 pieces) OH MY, what I did accomplish.

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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 sighted
• All the well wishes from my BLOGGIES.
• All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

It's Over for Now

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
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Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray to God my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I Pray the Lord my soul to take.
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Those are two of the prayers I said today. The experience was not unpleasant, but the awakening of the eye a few hours later is a bit uncomfortable, but not more than I can handle. I just want you all
to know that the encouragement, the experience of you that have had similar experiences, helped me to go forward with this. I slept most of the afternoon and am heading to bed as soon as I finish this post.
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It's okay. It's over. And I'm very much sober. Just won't get much
better than that.
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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 sighted
• Daave
• All y'all.

Now y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Tomorrow is the Big Day

April 13 - The reason that the true Master does not complain is that the true Master is not suffering, but simply experiencing a set of circumstances that you cal insufferable. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 107

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Hi y'all. Hope you had a fun day yesterday. I spent the day at Joe's with a couple of other friends. Joe fixed a great Leg of Lamb with my potatoes, onions, and carrots. The other two friends brought a salad and a chocolate raspberry cake. A good time and full tummies was enjoyed by all. In fact as soon as I finish this post I will have me the piece of cake I brought home last night. Now that is a miracle that a piece of cake survived in my house for over 24 hours. Truth be told, I actually forgot all about it until I just wrote about it. Me forgetting cake - well, it did happen.

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Tomorrow is my eye injection day. Daave and Hayden are picking me up about 12:15 or 12:30 and hauling my BA out to the eye doctors. I'm as nervous as I would be if I were sliding down a razor sharp banister into a vat of alcohol. OH SHIT, OUCH! Well maybe not.

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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 Sighted
• being sober to face this
• Praying for the Doctor's steady hand as she jabs the needle in my eye.
• For those of you that have had similar treatment and assured me I would not feel anything.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah!

Happy Easter!

April 12 - Your soul seeks the highest feeling. It seeks to experience--to be-- perfect love. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" p85

Happy Easter.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

From what happened to what I chose.

April 10 - You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you have chosen to be and do about what has happened. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 122

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Hi Alkies. Today's quote from CWG just really hit home with me. I certainly chose to be something other than what my early life dictated. Even with my alcoholism, I chose to be a "higher class" drunk that my parents, both natural and step. By higher class, I drank the good stuff. I drank out of high class containers (crystal, silver, etc.). It never occurred to me that although I was not a falling down drunk in a low class beer joint in a low class part of town, I was still a falling down drunk in a higher class club in a more cultured and affluent part of town. But the bottom line - a drunk is a drunk is a drunk. Here are some of the differences in parents and me.

1. Abusive. Them - yes Me - no.
2. Cheated on spouse - Them - yes; Me - Not allowed by law to have a spouse, but did cheat on my partner but not in the flagrant way that my parents did. Mine were isolated happenings. (cheating is cheating)
3. Drank cheap wines, beer, hard liquors. Them - yes; me - no. I drank the higher end.
4. Marked my bottles and had a fight with my partner because they drank out of my bottle. Them - yes. Me - no, my partners were mostly non-drinkers.
5. Committed to state mental facility for shock treatment for alcoholism. Father - yes; Mother -no; Stepfather - no. Me - no. (My self commitment to a psychiatric hospital was because of Major Depression which started the process that led to my getting sober)
6. Jailed for drunkenness. Father - many times; Mother - several times; Stepfather - prison. Me - jailed once. (I was just lucky)
7. Alcohol led to career loss. All of us - yes.
8. Made an assertive effort to be better off than my parents- father - yes; mother - yes; stepfather - no; me - yes.
9. I was determined not to let the environment that I grew up in keep me down, or excused what I did because I was abused. Except for my alcoholism, I did accomplish this.
10. Take anyone's life - Father - no; Mother - killed my stepfather; Stepfather - killed 5 men during prohibition; Me - no (but at 14 my Mother did take the gun out of my hand and shot my stepfather)
11. I rose above all this negativity in most areas of my life. However, in my alcoholism, I did do a lot of the same types of things my parents did. I lied, I cheated, I stole, I was manipulative, and I was always right.
12. Became Sober: Father - Sober thru AA last 25 years of his life. Mother - quit drinking at 75 and died sober 6 years later. Stepfather - Mother shot him before he could take any positive action. (I never thought about that before tonight) Me - Sober thru AA since January 20, 1992.

So yes, maybe I am ending up as my father did. Again this is an area I had never contemplated. Dad got sober at 48 and died at 73. I got sober at 50 and whether or not I beat his record is in the hands of God.

So all in all, my life has been quite different than those of my parents. I did not live my life, nor blame my frailties on my upbringing. Thanks to events in my youth beyond my control, I never said I did this or did not do this because of the way I was raised. I was so ashamed of the way I was raised and the white trash lifestyle of my parents, that there was no way I was going to be like them. I might have had silk sheets so to speak, but when it really comes down to it, my alcoholism brought me down to their level in ways I Never could admit. That is the freedom that being a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous has give me. That is the freedom that forgiveness as I have learned in AA has given me. There are many similarities in the road each of us trudged as we got here, but we were all(IMO) just garden variety drunks, whether it was just a dirt garden or a formal garden it still boils down to a drunk is a drunk is a drunk. I'm so glad that I'm no longer a drunk but an alcoholic. As the old joke goes - a drunk is a person who drinks heavily, an alcoholic has to go to those damned meetings. Thank God for those meetings. Thank God for inspiring those men to give us the 12 steps, the 12 traditions, the 12 principles, and the 12 promises. And a way of life that is a daily reprieve from hell. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Tonight I am grateful for:

• God, my Higher Power
• My Sobriety
• Mamie, my OCD schnauzer
• My Sponsor
• My Right EYE
• Being Sighted
• Only 4 days to the injection procedure on my Left Eye
• All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

One More Day.

April 9 - Every prayer--every thought,every feeling, every statement--is creative. To the extent that it is fervently held as truth, to that degree will it be made manifest in your experience. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 12

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Hey you there, alkies. How the hell are ya. This one is fine, made it through another day. I was totally bowled over this a.m. when I signed on and I had 10 hits from y'all. Thanks for the response. It is so great to be missed. I don't not post on purpose. It's just as I said when I first started to post, I don't promise every day, I don't want that commitment. However, if I do stop blogging, I will leave a post to that affect. OK? My goodness, the poets are out in force on the ole blogosphere. It's kind of nice for a change. I don't criticize anyone's style, I'm just glad you're all out there. I enjoy reading your posts, the comments, and the quotes.

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Today was a good day. I saw my shrink and he let me leave after an hour, so I guess I'm making some progress. At least they haven't come to take me away. Two weeks from tomorrow night is the start of the 50th reunion of my high school. Damned that makes me feel so old. Speaking of old, I had my transmission drained, flushed, and refilled today. They gave me a price and I reminded them that they told me another price, they checked my record and lowered it another $10. I then said beggingly, what about AARP, AAA, or Senior Senior Senior discount. She, yep she, laughed said oh you can't be that old and I said I'm 67 and she gave me another 10% discount. When the truck was finished, she gave me my keys and said "So, Sober and Crazy, huh. Well, tell Bill hello for me." We're just everywhere aren't we. (My bumper sticker is "SOBER and CRAZY." The sober part is God's work and the crazy part is my work. Thank you God for inspiring these two men to start such a life saving and changing program called Alcoholics Anonymous. It works.

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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 sober.
• My retinologist
• Tuesday is one day closer.
• All y'all.

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.

Hello Alkies

There is no need to recriminate yourself. Simply notice what you've been choosing and choose again. Meditations from "Conversations with God - Book 1" page 119

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Hi there my friends and fellow alkies. Life has been in session and I have lived with it and through it. No drama, just one foot in front of the other. This past Saturday, April 4, 2009 was the 28th anniversary of my meeting Vic. The past few years the day has come and gone and I've thought about it afterwards. I don't know why it was different this year, it just was. As the day wore on, I got a little more down. Went to my AA meeting at Lambda that night after dining with Daave, John, and Rick. The speaker was quite good, but then she is a friend of mine, but she still shared what it was like, what happened and what it is like now. After the meeting I hung around a bit and then left. As I was leaving Daave flagged me down, and just said Don't be such a stranger, and that triggered a rush of tears, quickly damned up, and it just made me feel so good. Just that one moment of someone caring was just the ticket. Now the evening had been a good one, saw a lot of friends as usual. But I guess I just needed that one thing at that one moment in time and Voila, the ride home was without the burden that I did not know I was really carrying on my shoulders. I guess I lied above when I said there was no drama. Just a tidge. It was a God Shot, and I love me some God Shots.

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Tonight I am Grateful for:

• God my Higher Power
• My Sobriety
• Mamie, my OCD schnauzer
• My Sponsor who is still on the mend. He is certainly an inspiration to me. He's been hospitalized for the past 7 weeks, but his projected attitude is just amazingly positive all the way.
• My Right Eye
• Being sighted
• Vision in left eye has improved significantly in the last three weeks. But I have had focusing problems.
• Tuesday, April 14, I receive the injections to my left eye.
• Medicare will not cover it, But my United Healthcare through IBM is covering it.
• Still sober, no matter what.
• Now y'all be pretty now, ya heah.