To keep up with 30 in 30 here's my second entry for today.
Another dust storm just rolled in. These things will drive you crazy! Well, me at least. I'm a clean freak. It doesn't matter how well you cover your things, the dust will penetrate roght to where you don't want it to be. You breathe it, you eat it and you drink it. Like Demi said, it's like the dust under your grandma's bed. And when the dust rolls in, so do the attacks. Sneaky bastards, too scared to shoot mortars at us in broad daylight.
I can actually hear them now. As I type, boom boom boom. There's another one. Four since I've started this blog. I might have to finish later.
Until I have to go, a little more of my experience, strength and hope:
I started drinking at age 17. September 16th 1999. I remember my first drink. Jack and coke. By the third drink I was mixing them half and half and by the end of the night I was sitting on the bedroom floor next to the bed drinking straight out of the bottle. Woke up at 6am went to work and pulled a 14 hour shift with no hangover no headache and nothing reallty but the whiskey shits. Thus began my drinking career.
I experimented with a few different flavors of drugs and settled down a little when I got married at 21. I joined the Military after I got laid off at the mill (yea, sounds an awful lot like a country song!) and couldn't pay the bills stocking toys at Wal-Mart. Joining the military ended my experimentation completely (really random drug tests with someone watching the piss come out is a HUGE deterrent) and rediscovered alcohol in the form of $2 pitchers in tech school. For 11 weeks I lived for FRiday. All week all I could think of was "I can't wait to get off on Friday and get DRUNK!"
Well, drinking eventually cost me my marriage and I sought help from our friendly family advocacy services on base. I wound up filling out a short survey about my drinking and lo and behold . . . I MIGHT BE AN ALCOHOLIC!
The good part comes next . . .
3 weeks in mixed inpatient detox with the usual daily helping of vitamin and mineral shots. Ouch. I made lots of friends, one is still sober today. Started working my program with a sponsor, did my inventory, started making amends.
Life began to get a little bit brighter. One day at a time the promises started showing up in my life. I began to see that I had a life without alcohol. I found things I enjoy doing on my own. I learned how to love being me, and that I'm not that bad a guy.
So I'm doing this deal. It's a great way of life. I miss my support system, but I have enough tools and reserves built up to make it through this and whatever else comes my way. God is on my side, whether I like it or not!
No more booms. Feels good! That's all for now, peace~
Kelsey
Hey Kelsey, enjoyed reading your blog. Guess you know that for those of us who have never faced what you are, I can't even begin to imagine.
It was a beautiful day here in Northern California. The sun was shining, just a hint of wind, and the farm smells like the freshly rototilled soil that is finally taking the shape of rows. Soon we will plant cotton, an early and short statured variety so the kids can really see it. Ironstone Vineyards is coming in June to plant our vineyard which will attract even more of the finches and robins. Found a robin egg today, somebody had a birthday recently. While feeding my turtles, I looked into the moat to find the mother and father duck and their 6 remaining ducklings paddling around happily through the winters muck and mess. Soon it too will be sparkling clean and fresh. I watched them take their 1st swim last week. Mama marched down the steep 45 degree concrete sides on her big webbed feet into the water. One by one, each little duck took a step and end over teakettle they went, tumbling, rolling, bouncing and finally splashing into the water. Amazing the sacrifices for survival these wee ones make even on their first few days. Sure to have been a few bumps on the noggin. Why didn't the last one say, "Hmmm, wait a minute. I don't think I'll do that". Instinct, love, survival, the need to follow, don't know which or all but how many of us are that committed to our course. I know I sure banged up my head many of times and still went right on bouncing down that hill. I thank God that my life is as it should be at this moment in time. I have no fear, regrets are not too heavy, and most of all I have hope. Maybe that's what keeps those little duckies going. Hoping that the pain is worth that swim. In alot of ways, I think I am a better person than I might have been without going through the dark razor slashes of addiction. I don't know that many people actually look for a reason to analyze themselves and their life in such microscopic detail as we have found. I do know that we are all special in that we submitted and admitted defeat and our powerlessness. In that, we learned also about our powerlessness in many other areas of our lives. We were grateful for our lives which we had so casually flaunted into the shadow and quagmire of death. And once awakening, we cling to life in the hopes that there will be a promise kept and a new, and better life ahead of us.
Dang, don't know where that came from….
Peace and Love, Demi