Aladinsane

Returning home was one thing I did not want to do. I hated the place I was born. After all it was the place that caused me my heartache in the first place. And I was returning there a loser.
I had no where else to go. The first week there I promised myself I would get help. I found a great counselor who after a while suggested AA or Na.
I chose AA. Either would have helped I think, but mom had gotten sober some years prior through AA so I went there. It was a small church in the library. It was crowded but I felt peace there. I don't know what it was about it but I felt comfortable there. Mom was there, I didn';t dare speak , I was afraid of what i would have said about my parnts or what i had done in my drunken black outsor brown outs. All those horrible things.
I sat a listened.I then began to go to meetings on my own and found people I could talk to.
I found out through my counselor I had dysthymia aa form of depression. I also found out i needed my back operated on for the second time, from a doctor's appointment i made through my counselor.
During th pre op exam i found out i needed heart surgery, all this in the first year of sobriety. That first year i hardly remeber, just went through the motions.
I tried to keep in contact with my children but they weren't interested, I contimplated suicide several times but I never folowed through. There were small poignant messages being sent to me as I think about it now. I was being watched over.
Afetr the surgeries I kept up the counseling the group therapy and the meetings, I had to completely empty my mind of what i knew, and begin again. To think differently to learn new coping strategies, it was an amazingly difficult and wonderful experience at the samre time. I became a different human being entirely.
Surely if I had not failed or even died yet, I had a reason to live.
Through e- mails and phone calls I talked to my kids and my estranged wife, we visited each other a few times a month and evebntually decided to try again.
Life is managable now. Through the steps i conduct my life now. Ithas not made life any easier but has made more managable. I thank my higher power and the people imn my life including the people in SR who keep me strong and remind me what I have to do everyday.