I don't know if this is the appropriate topic to share this on but I thought of it as I was reading through the responses. I had occasion to go to a beer joint last month to pick up some rodeo tickets from my dad. I went to the beer joint because his gf owns and runs it and that is where he spends all his free time. This was the first time I had seen my dad in two years and the first time since I got sober. Last time we were together both of us were shaking like leaves because we hadn't had our daily drink. Only difference was he had a beer and felt better yet I couldn't because I had to go back to work. I don't have a super close relationship with him so I don't see him all that often. When I do I am always taken aback at how different he looks. Now some of it is due to age because neither one of us is getting any younger (I'm 40 he's 61) but some of it I know is because of the drinking. He has gained a lot of weight, he is puffy and has bad color and a LOT of broken capillaries on his face. That scares the hell out of me because I have quite a few of those myself and I KNOW it was from the violent throwing up I did when drinking.
Anyway, sitting on a barstool in a bar in sobriety, sipping on a Diet Coke I realized that that could have been my future, my life, sitting down at the neighborhood bar daily. The women there, the older ones, have such a "hard" look about them and that could have been me. Thank God I quit after 3.5 years of abuse and still look younger than my age.
I couldn't get out of that place fast enough. My disease was going beserk and my sober self was struggling for control. I got out and ran like my *ss was on fire to a meeting.
Thank God I don't have to live like that today!
Kellye