Hey HoundHeart, Thanks for your words, I appreciate it. Just so you know alittle background, I lived in S. Korea for 7 years and after I came back to the US, I had her come over and we got married. She's "old stlye" Korean, where the wife takes care of the husband and her house as her first priority, for a number of years, I'd come downstairs (hungover as usual) and she'd have my coffee already made for me in a cup with the perfect amount of sugar, my lunch made for me to take to work, a nice cooked dinner when I came home. Back in 2001, a doctor screwed up her meds and long story short, her bloods ability to clot got about 10 times less than normal and she had a bleed in her lower spine and was paralyzed from the waist down for about a year and a half. And we lived in a 3 level town house :-( It was rough times. She's had 3 major surgeries and came close to dying twice (that's partially why I believe I self medicated with alcohol so much, only at home, by myself, late at night, to numb the pain). With a tremendous amount of will power and stregnth, she got from a wheel chair to a walker, to a wide base cane to a cane, to where she just has a limp when she walks now and has chronic pain problems due to scar tissue in her spinal column. But I wake up every morning and she's just so positive about life, even after all the hell she's been thru, there is no way I could go thru what she did and not be bitter at the world. She took such good care of me when she could, it's kind of pay back time and I enjoy doing it for her and I knows she appreciates it. And to have her look at me and say "Yobo (Korean for "dear" or "honey"), Please, just don't drink!". It would break my heart because I know she cannot understand the craving and the need for my mind to just get blotted out. But having her here, letting me know she prays for me every day and _Still_ supporting me makes it oh so much easier!! Addiction runs rampant in my family and my brothers life was destroyed by alcohol but his wife was a total witch and gave him no support or help; I am fortunate enough to have a good, kind, loving, woman who tho she cannot understand my yearnings, she just lets me know that she's there for me. She's my rock. I sure hope you find someone like her in your life, it will really turn your world around :-) Anyway, that's my story in a nutshell... I've quit before for over a year and always started back up, but I quit again 2/20 of this year and believe I will be walking the straight and narrow, I turned 50 last year and if I do not change my behavior now I never will. I quit smoking on April 1st, 2000, 10 years ago, when I decided the harm I was doing to myself did not equal the pleasure it gave me, never smoked again; I kind of got that way about alcohol, so.... Here I am... Very successful, done good for myself, etc., be a shame to throw it all away! But yeah, the early morning wake ups, especially on the weekends where I have a few quiet hours to think about things, well, it just brings a kind of calmness to myself that I know I have been missing. Again, thanks for the kind words, I hope all works out for you too!!
Peace,
...Mike