Service!

Just passed my fourth month of sobriety and I've just accepted my first serious service commitment... I'll be chairing a weekend meeting at my home group... One of the most valuable tools of the program...

Four Months

Today marks four months since I used alcohol.

A Monday Check In

Here's where I was yesterday... I went to an early morning Sunday meeting. There were only three of us. And that was just perfect... We read Step 11 in the "12 & 12" which to me boils down to: Prayer = Asking. Meditation = Listening... I've shared recently that I am completely in touch with the fact that the caregiving that I do at work can completely deplete me. And that I would cluelessly use alcohol to mask and medicate myself. I was a resentment collector, saving up all the angst for the first next opportunity for "binge night at the local dive bar". Now, since working the steps, I find that I'm working harder at more quickly "letting go" of resentments as I go along, and not saving them up at all... Very interesting how it works.... Meanwhile, I do have more than my fair share of work-induced anxiety, and that annoying knot feeling is another reminder that I need to be alert to the temptation to medicate it with alcohol... One day at a time.... Including today, where I am headed to a an early morning meeting before launching the work week. I'm grateful that it's there...

A Grape Juice Toast to a Sober Work Year Ahead

This is my first day of a brand new work year... And I'm Sober! While I began getting sober during the end of the last work year... I've never launched a new work year (with all the changes, lack of control, challenges, personalities, politics, anticipation anxiety, authority figures, lifestyle changes and fear) without medicating myself... * I'm grateful to have a job at a time when so many do not. * I'm grateful for having had a summer off to self care and to enjoy several meetings a day, study the literature, develop a network of support, and to cleanse my body of the ill effects of binge drinking.... * I'm grateful for the knowledge that the challenge begins a day at a time. * I'm grateful for a morning Round Robin meeting that's along the walk to work, that I plan to stop in today to launch the work year on a bright and positive note. * I'm grateful for Twenty Four Hours A Day for a morning meditation to help launch my day... Here we go...