6 months...feeling great.
monday will be 6 months for me. as good as i felt at 3 months i feel infinitely better at 6 months.
my thinking is really clearing up to new levels. i'm much better at my job. i'm still tired some but heck, i just turned 50 in october and i think its just part of the aging process.
but i am not waking up with a horrid stomach. i am not throwing up during the day at work in the office restroom. i am not dreading eating anything except soup and bread on mondays after and all out assault on alcohol on weekends.
i am a fully functioning father now. offering advice and wisdom to my recently college graduated son when he asks for it instead of being passed out on the sofa when he visits.
i just returned from a week long medical / dental mission trip to nicaragua. i had been on many of these in the past but you are not allowed to drink on them (duh) so i had taken myself out of the running since 2001 since i drank every single night since then.
i got tired from the trip but it was a blessing to be able to help those that are so much less fortunate than the majority of us that were lucky enough to be born in the states.
i have dealt with 2 deaths since i came back. one was the mother of my youngest son's best friend. she was very active with the youth in this community through church and other avenues. there were probably over 1,000 people at her funeral today. i didn't attend.
i went to a funeral of a man i hadn't seen in 30 years. he was a friend in h.s. and joined the marine corps about a year after i did so we always had that connection. he was a gentle soul that was best friends with my younger brother. i had googled and facebooked his name many times coming up with nothing until i saw his obituary in the local daily.
there were 28 people at his funeral and that included family. he was an alcoholic and i didn't find that out until today. he was staying in a fleabag motel and had fallen outside and pretty much bled out until someone came across him. he was lifeflighted to the university of louisville medical center where he died.
he had great potential but alcohol limited him. the lady i mentioned was not a drinker. this man was no less loved by the ones around him but it was such a stark contrast to the end of their lives. both are gone for sure but she touched so many more lives simply because she didn't drink.
i don't believe in ever trying to scare anyone straight and that is not what i'm trying to do. it damn sure would not have worked for me. i quit when I had enough of living a sorry life. it just hit me in the face again today that drink has its consequences.
for any newcomer, as i have said many times. i am by no means anyone special. 6 months ago monday i was coming off a holiday weekend bender and hated the way i felt and hated what i had become. i was not always an alkie.
you can do this. i did it through the good people right here.
one quick story and i apologize for how long this is. the first morning in nicaragua we were waiting to get on the busses to take us to the village. i ran into a nicaraguan nurse i've known since '90. she screamed my name and said (in espaņol) that she had been praying for me to return all these years...since '01.
it buckled my legs that i had been going about my business....mainly drinking until passing out and here was this little lady praying for me and my family. she said she prayed in january that she didn't know if i was alive or dead but was praying for me to come back. alive or dead....how true that could have been. i could easily be dead from my drinking....or drinking and driving. we've all done it. even not got caught but that doesn't lessen the fact that i could have been dead by now.
sorry again for the length. you can do this. you can return to your former life or start a new one if you didn't like your pre drinking days....lol. thanks to all on here.
david.