Why didn't they have this in my office?

Because I would have arrived here sooner and then it wouldn't be now!

I live more fully sober:

I turn over my fears as I’m walking down the street one cloudy day. The autumn leaves turn over themselves on the sidewalk before me.

And then I hear something. Far away I hear a literal bird singing. And then it hits me. This is what turning over my fears and my addictions has finally given me. My hearing. My unfocused hearing. Now, not drinking for almost three years, I had turned over another addiction, my addiction to cigarettes, and here’s what I noticed: Not that I would live longer, but that I could live more fully in the present. Yes, I could taste better and smell better without the tobacco and liquor in my mouth and on my breath, but that I could live better and actually hear better in the present, because I was not focused on the next drink of my addiction and the next smoke of my addiction.

I could live more fully in the now.

I turn over my fears as I’m walking down the street. The autumn leaves turn over themselves on the sidewalk before me.

I live more fully in the now.

 

from All Drinking Aside: The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal (Rough Draft, Chapter 79)

Drinking has resulted in some Seedy Hotel Rooms for me.

Just Not this SEEDY!

Alcohol changed every fiber of my being

like the root of a tree that could not ever be.

A Toast from the Already Toasted:

"Here's Lookin' Atcha!"

SNOB SNOCKERED!!!

Snob Snockered: This I was because, because, because, because...

I was.

Or So I Thought.

Cocaine sped me up and slowed me down.

Roller Coasters Are Fun Until They Can't Stop Going Around.

I Never Did Say "I Do!"

But I have said That.

I had two fires to Extinguish:

Tobacco and Alcohol. No doubt, I would have walked out of my first Rehab had they forbidden smoking. I might be dead from drinking by now had they forbade me from killing myself smoking.  

Unlike Churchill, when I woke up I was still drunk

And today, sober, I am still an alcoholic.

"Reflections of the way life used to be..."

Pretty Poison to me.

I can't decant or whine about wine...

(Empty, that is.)

"Wake up and smell the coffee"

means more to me now that  I'm alcohol and tobacco-free.

It's that simple.

"Hope Springs Eternal"

And Spring Eternally Brings Hope.

Recovery: Change is Possible.

Today I am 4 years Smoke-Free.

"Smokin'!"

My People, Places and Things Have Changed Today.

So Texts Like This Are Less Than Likely.

My former self fell off the shelf and I was broke in two.

How the hell would I get well?

A.A., my human glue.

THE WAY I WAS WHEN...

...I WAS IN MY BUZZ.

At first sober, I could not fill those shoes, shadow of my former self,

sobriety could not, would not work for me.

Yet it did.

That it could not, would not work for me was yet another lie that Alcoholism told.

One Drink Always Leads to Another

SKILL LEVEL: ALCOHOLIC

Sober Silly

Sure beats a supercilious stupor.

I am a Meth Lab and...

AN ALCOHOLIC!!!

I am a "Pre-Snooki" Alcoholic!

And for this I am grateful.

If Toucan Sam Can Then...

Why, O, Why Can't I?

Nothing could cushion my fall...

Like a bouncing ball coming to rest,

I would find recovery or I would find death.

It took awhile to get used to the swing of things sober.

After years the epiphanies mount up and have epiphanies of their own.

Imagine that.

let me start at the beginning...

"alcoholism runs in my family"

wish i had a nipple for every time i've heard that.

THE BLAME GAME

Maybe it does start as a game.

Maybe I'm not an Alcoholic.

I'm a little bit of an Alcoholic.

And this is a little bit of a Duck. Like being a little bit pregnant, an alcoholic should question how far the disease has progressed.