Well ....
Thanks for the invitation to share, Carol - but I think it's been pretty much covered ... the closest to mine is my good buddy Jfanagle ...
Some differences, of course.
But the physical symptomology ... yeah. that's pretty much it.
Like ...(differences)
I interviewed for this job on four days off booze.
I was still shaking, vomiting, sweating ....
and had to get dressed to come in here for an interview.
I literally had to sit on my hands to get through it.
Got to the end of the interview
(which felt like it lasted somewhere around a WEEK)
stood to shake hands all that;
and I hear myself saying to the GM:
"Listen, you got a minute?
There's something I need to tell you about me before we conclude this thing."
And I told her.
I told her I'd been fired for being drunk on the job.
Told her that four days earlier - I'd tried to commit suicide.
I told her I was committed to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous and that nothing - NOTHING was going to be able to come between myself and my recovery.
I told her it wasn't because I wanted to be well - it was because I had nothing left ... and had failed to die.
I told her I could not promise her I would never drink again.
I told her that I could not start out on a road of rigourous honesty as called for in the Fellowship without telling her these things before she considered me for a job with this hotel.
She hired me on the spot.
SO I got up, and went to the Alano club, where my sponsor and a couple of others were waiting to see how I did ...
got out of my car and looked down
(I'd felt a 'breeze)
THE FRONT OF MY SHIRT HAD COME UNBUTTONED!!!!
I'd interviewed .. with the top half of my shirt open. And I was so sick - I didn't feel it until I got outside.
I still have that same job today. The God of my Understanding walked me into this place as surely as I am sitting here typing this post. The GM hadn't even noticed the shirt - she told me months later that what had impressed her about me - was my honesty.
What to expect?
Expect to get better.
Expect your laughter ... to come back.
Childhood laughter.
Not that angry drunk laughter at someone's expense.
That bright, happy laughter we knew as kids .. but forgot as drunks.
Expect things ... to make sense again.
Expect ... life ... to happen all around you.
Expect the simple awe of a bluer sky.
Expect to be able to see it (life) for the miracle it is.
What we did - whatever it takes.
It will work for you as well. It takes courage to choose life.