Hi everyone who still checks in
I'm doing ok. Thoughts of alcohol or being "an alcoholic" are so rare its hard for me to even remember when I have had the thought...except for when I go to the dr. or the councilor ... then I have to think about the alcohol issue. Mostly it seems that if I don't drink, I don't have an "alcohol problem". I have physical problems due to my history of alcohol abuse, and I certainly can't successfully have a drink. But I am pretty much busy living life, developing my practice, watching how things are, how I react...just doing the deal and drinking just isn't a part of it.
My counselor is wanting to only see me once a month ... I don't have a lot to say or discuss about thoughts of drinking or alcohol related issues but they have slotted me as in for alcoholism (apparently if you are alcoholic you can no longer see a regular counselor (only an alcoholism counselor) with out a lot of paperwork...long waiting...and well they just don't want to look at anything else. I finally got set up with a private physiatrist s the public health center flat out said that they will never set me up to see one through them. My read on some of this is that it is related to being understaffed and having so many people in this town with no insurance, and no money for private services...so they just need people with insurance to seek private practitioners (unfortunately there are only 3 in this town, despite what the web will tell you LOL).
I'm ok with it all because I actually think that counseling, while it can be very helpful, is not what will really benefit me at this point. I think seeking a F2F Buddhist teacher would be a better fit for working through things from a different perspective that has worked for me in the past. For now I read the books and watch the dharma talks on the web and put together the practice as I can.
Well ... that is a sort of where I'm at udate LOL
The Prine concert was awesome. 1/3 concert, 1/3 sing a long and 1/3 karaoke LOL
Now the rest of the trick kinda sucked. I could go on and on about the problems with lodging, transportation and then my tremors were not well controlled at that point which made some of the tasks a bit embarrassing and difficult to manage.
But the Concert was great and before the concert I got to eat at an absolutely awesome first class restaurant. I actually got to sit at a small bar area they had that was open to the kitchen so you could watch the 3 lines of chefs in action, complete with expediters' and all the different types of chefs... Brought back some good memories of my restaurant service days and was a joy to watch the cooking and have the opportunity to talk with some of the chef's (since I was there at 5:30 and they weren't busy!).
OK .. I really need to get to work now .... I'll try to spell check this before posting.
Let me know how all of you are doing as well.