God – Unfathomable Life

I Am Blessed

Such an emotional day today – from the pits of despair one minute to a sense of safety and comfort 30 minutes later.

Where to start?

I had three things on mind this morning that were creating great anxiety and stress which I kept on praying and reminding myself that everything would look different by this time next week.

So – quick wrap up.

Last night I told The Boy how upset I was about him going to the strip club and how betrayed I felt – it didn’t go down exceptionally well, but at least I said something. Still felt emotionally scarred and hurt, however I told him.

Today I met with The Manager and, although the two hour meeting was not pleasant, and tears were cried (a little), we are both on the same page, and nothing was really a surprise. What was clear is that I am starting to face the mess that my drinking has caused – the unmanageability of my life and the consequences of my actions. Painful but OK.

THEN (yep) the day isn’t over yet – I met my sponsor and spewed out all of my thoughts and feelings, did Step Three and am now on Step Four. Am I proud, pleased and amazed? Yes I am. I am also incredibly thankful for AA, for my Sponsor and my friends that I have made in AA – of which I have gained great strength from.

After walking out of my Sponsors apartment, I called my budding Kitty Kat, who has 40+ days sober and was struggling. Bad news. She had fucked up on some medication which took her straight back to Day 1 which then prompted the evil addiction of alcoholism to dig it’s claws into her tender flesh. She is drinking whilst I type and we are texting each other. I am so sad for her, but safe in my own sobriety – my sobriety comes first. Yet I refuse to not be there for someone in need and as long as she answers my texts I will be there for her supporting her. Dear sweet girl. I know something of where she is right now and I can only be there when/if she comes back. Never turn my back on her but never lose sight of my own safety.

So, I then went home to my sick Boy and hugged him and shared some good feelings and love. My gorgeous little girl Sparkles begged me for a ‘mummy’ walk – her 3rd for the day – so I invited The Boy and we went for a walk. And counted my blessings and shared my story about Kitty Kat with The Boy as a demonstration of how easy it is to fall down.

I can now reflect on the day, give thanks for all of my lessons I have been taught today and in the recent past.

I am blessed each day I am sober and each day I am given another day to make amends by following Gods will.

So in eight hours I went from:

To this:

To being blessed because of this:

Isabella.

xxxx

12 Steps of AA & Prayers

The 12 Steps Of AA:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

12 Step Prayers:

3rd Step Prayer – ” God [of our own understanding], I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always.”

7th Step Prayer – “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.”

11th Step Prayer – “We ask God [of our own understanding] to direct our thinking, especially asking to be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self seeking motives. Thy will be done.

Serenity Prayer:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can,

And wisdom to know the difference.”

Where to Start? It’s been so long.

Where to start my friends?

Well. I am still sober and completely and utterly happy about it – I am in a really good place, the sun is shining, I am at peace with the world and with myself.

That makes it 27 days sober and alcohol free.

I am pretty pleased about my progress, without getting to ‘up myself’. I have had a lot of help from others, had a lot of down moments, however the biggest change in me has been that my cravings have gone. My instant default thought is no longer that I need a bottle of white wine to energise, dull or sedate me. My thought is that thank god I have options – many, many options and I don’t have to drink anymore.

It is mind-blowing to be in my head at the moment. I have been sober for six months before – over a year ago now – and it was a constant struggle to keep going, to fight the urge to drink and to keep sober. It was exhausting, mentally draining – I was full of anger, denial and resentments. There was no peace in my heart or mind, no serenity or let up from the madness that is my addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Today. I wake up happy that this is my life, that I no longer have to struggle or fight myself, that I just have to be – to let someone else do the heavy lifting, to steer the boat and to make the decisions. My job is to keep being willing and open, to hand over my life to someone who knows best, because god knows I don’t – that’s how I got into this mess in the first place.

I would like to share a couple of readings I found today that sum me up at the moment:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.34

Second reading:

“Our whole trouble has been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us.”

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p.40

As you may have guessed, I have turned to the last place I have to help me with my addictions – AA.

A year ago, I left AA in resentment and anger as I thought of it as a cult, full of people who really didn’t care and who were blind to the psychobabble. I was still fighting the need to let go of my self-will, failing to see that it was my self-will that had gotten me into some pretty damn scary places where I had no right to be. That I could not trust my self-will, even though it had done a lot of good as well.

It was only until this weekend that I realised that my self-will had gotten me into a situation where I had a loaded gun put to my head, and I still stuck around because I could get free drugs. It was my self-will that saw me (extremely drunk but fully aware of what I was doing) get into a car full of ICE addicts and go to their place to score some free speed. My self-will should have me dead. Indeed I think I wanted die.

This weekend, M helped me see that my self-will was full of disease, that I had no right to trust my self, that I was not following a healthy path. However I used to marvel and thank god that I had gotten out of a situation unharmed and alive. Which told me that I have always had a universal soul looking out for me, helping and protecting me – I have always been aware of that, of him, and have always thanked him after the fact.

So this weekend I decided that I would flip this sorry situation on its proverbial head and hand my self-will over to my universal saviour and let him decided what is good for me. I will no longer be apologising for my behavior after the fact, I will be asking for guidance before acting.

My reward thus far is feeling serene, happy and most of all – craving free – I do not even want a drink, I am not scared of myself nor am I needing to get away from myself. That in itself is amazing.

Life is amazing.

I am blessed.

Isabella.

xxxxx

Don’t Pick Up The First Drink

Well, as you know, I was not having a great afternoon and it only got worse. The cravings were really strong, my liver was screaming out for a glass of chilled, sav blanc to soothe the tension and stress that it was feeling. It was a physical sensation – quite separate from my mind. It is an extremely weird sensation – your mind is saying NO and your body is screaming for something.

Usually my liver is throbbing trying to flush out the alcohol, or toxins, that I had poured into its sensitive little chamber – literally throbbing and pulsating. When I am hung over, I can literally FEEL the cold water hitting it and soothing the little fucker. Likewise when I have a glass of cold white wine, it instantly hits my liver and, again, soothes the savage beast, lulling it into a sense of calm and peace…..until I stop drinking for the night or day.

If you are into visualization, I feel like I have a little green gremlin in my liver that screams, shouts and jumps up and down for a white wine, or sparkling champagne, then once he has gorged himself, he lays down, opens his mouth and just lets the alcohol pour down into his fat little stomach. That’s all I hear from him. Until the next morning when he is dragging himself across the floor moaning ….. “Water, Water … wine … ANYTHING cold – I need to cool down, I am burning UPPPPP”.

Then it takes the fat little gremlin a day and night to brush himself down, get back on his feet and start stomping, shaking the bars of his cell demanding feeding again – WINE, CHAMPAGNE – ANYTHING!!!!

So that is where my addiction sits. In my liver. The gremlin has a lot of strength and power over my body and mind – although my mind is in cahoots as well sometimes. I can go into a fugue state, where I am not able to think, I just walk into a bar, sit down and order a drink – even though I am screaming at myself to stop.

So. How did I get I get over this afternoons really bad cravings? I nearly didn’t. But I imagined tomorrow morning and not fronting up to the meeting, not being able to meet with my new sponsor and having to start all over again. Go through the last 3 days again????? No way. Not at the moment thank you.

So I went to a meeting that I had never been to before – full of young, old, gorgeous, glowing people with 20+ years to 2-3 days like me. It really eased my cravings which is bizarre – really bizarre. Once I had somewhere to go, and people to talk to about my issue (not that I spoke too much), the cravings eased and I had a sense of calm.

Then, another danger zone – Friday night, party night. Luckily, as The Boy is away for 3 weeks, I had arranged to meet up with a friend to go for a walk around the local seaside suburb I live in, have some dinner, fresh air and conversation. Which is what I did – plus a 15 min should/neck massage which really eased the tension of the day and after two hours walking, talking and looking at the sights, I was home at 10pm, showered and relaxed.

Safe and Sober.

Almost a miracle.

What it has shown me is that you have to put the effort in and make a choice about doing something different from drinking.

Now. Change of scenery.

So The Boy and I haven’t seen each other for nearly two weeks due to work and him taking off to another state for a holiday followed by work next week. I have taken to calling him to let him know how I am tracking – particularly if I am having a shitty time as he needs to know.

But. He is out drinking with his mates – who I know are alcoholics, and I know he will end up drunk tonight and he has already started sex – texting me. The last time he did it full on, he had been out with his mates, in another state, yet another mini holiday, and he had been to a strip club. I am really trying not to feel resentful, and think I am succeeding, however where is the empathy? Would I call him drunk if the situation was reversed? Would I rub it in his face if he were the one trying to stop drinking for good? No. I wouldn’t. I would support as much as I could.

A friend said to me that I do need to stop as he has a feeling that if I don’t stop drinking my life will come crashing down. At my lowest ebb, I get really depressed thinking that if The Boy and I were to break up – particularly due to my drinking – I wouldn’t cope and that would be the end of me.

However, even the last 1 1/2 weeks, I have really enjoyed the time alone – even though I have gotten smashed a lot, I have enjoyed the freedom, quiet and the ability to do what I want and when I want. I feel like I am free and me.

I hope this continues this sobriety thing – I am just in the infant stages, however I am trying and I know the alternative.

But the flip side is, that if The Boy and I were to split up ……… as long as it was not to do with my drinking binges …. I think I would be ok.

Anyway.

Enough for tonight.

Isabella.