I like how you think, PBC. I think I'll just draw a big circle on my wall!
I hope all are well. I've had a bit of a flipped out weekend. I posted a strong post on newcomers Friday, and within hours was wanting very badly to drink and/or smoke. It was like a void of my vices needed filling. I started questioning why I'm doing this, giving myself outs; "you only live once", "you're not superhuman", "give yourself a break". I became short-tempered, angry, surly. I was going to go to a meeting Friday night, but my stomach got upset. Yesterday, more of the same. But, I found a meeting last night, and it helped a little. Today, fine until the wife started in, then flipped again. Made it to church, and had to rush home with an upset stomach.
Maybe I'm getting sick. Last night, my ear lobes started burning, and turned red. Yet, it was 60 degrees, so it wasn't cold. My itching came back. I went to bed early, only to be awoken by my wife, who couldn't find the dog, didn't tie her up when she let her out, and then said, oh well, no one wants the dog anyway. I called her a POS. What lame thinking! Even though its true I think the dog has proven more than my family can/will handle, and it's polluted my house with stains, smells, and allergens that effect me, I don't consider it running away and getting hit by a car the responsible way to handle it, but evidently thats okay with my wife. Thats just lazy in every possible way. I got up and circled the neighborhood, since she wasn't going to, only to have her track me down after 15 min and tell me that the dog was in our daughters room the whole time. I had twice asked if she checked everywhere, including there. Went to bed mad. Yet, my wife still gave me her dramatic victim routine, a regular show at the home theater.
This morning, at church, I was glad I hadn't drank. Truthfully, I've been setting myself up for the fall. On Halloween weekend, when we had our fire and stew, I bought a 12 pack of Miller Lite for the neighbors. Its been sitting in the bar fridge since. It didn't affect me, so I thought, well, we sometimes have folks over, so maybe I'm strong enough to stock the bar. And that I've done over the last two weeks. It's up to a case and a half of beers of varying types, and several big bottles of wine. I've even planned to go to the liquor store for bourbon and vodka. Just in case we have guests.
Oh yeah...that's right, we rarely have guests anymore since my wife and I started airing our dirty married laundry a couple years back, and I became an ******** drunk. Damn. Oh well, you can't fault a guy for dreaming, huh? I mean, any day now, throngs of people are gonna want to start hanging with us again, right?
Anyway, I'm sitting in church, hearing the message, nodding and smiling at friends and clients, and thinking, man, would this be different right now if I was hungover or still drunk, as many a time I was. Then I thought, maybe I'm going through a new threshold of growth. Like a baby cries with growing pains, I've been getting pissed off and wanting to bail on it all. It's tiring, wearisome. Then I remembered that speaker I told you all about, Dr. Kevin Elko, and one of his tenets; "fight weary". That's what you do when you feel like giving up, 'cause the likelihood is that you are close to the next level of success when you are that worn out.
Then I started thinking about the fact that our earth is in constant spiritual warfare. If you want to change your life for the better, you'd better believe the Evil One has his eye on you, and will want to stand in your way. He'll laugh when you crumble, and compromise your goal or give up. Fight weary. Satan delights in depression, melancholy, and drunkenness. It's a win for him when we allow those to control us. Those facets are not necessarily evil unto themselves, but when they win, Satan wins.
It's true. So, FIGHT WEARY!!!!!