This time of the year--the holidays--usually make me think of how incredibly blessed I am to be clean and sober...

I used to start celebrating the holidays around Halloween and didn't stop until after St. Paddy's Day...and that is true. A holiday of any sort would give me an excuse to drink/get high.
After awhile I didn't need any excuse...

Looking back, I'm ever so grateful that I did get clean and sober early enough that my grown children do have memories of holidays with a clean and sober mother...it's nice for me to have those memories, also.
My children did have therapy for a few years, and I believe they have an understanding about ACOA issues.

Holidays are so different now! More joy and less fear.
Fear that once again I was going to ruin another Christmas season for my family. Far too many Christmas mornings were ruined by my being hungover...open the gifts then back to bed.

Get up and start cooking tons of food. Tons because it gave me an excuse to be in the kitchen drinking and easing the hangover a wee bit. The family would be nearly starving and I was practically beating them back with my broomstick 'cause I hadn't had enough to drink yet...
There was enough food to feed 46,000 people...I'd want another drink so I just absolutely had to cook something else so I could have that darn drink. Well, sushi didn't need cooked and neither did the twelve salads I threw together.
Leftovers until the middle of January...

When I did get clean and sober, I had to relearn how to cook. There's a rhythm I developed when I was drinking--sip then stir, stir then sip.
I had forgotten how to stir without the sipping. Oh Joy. We never did have gravy for the mashed potatoes my first holiday dinner without a drink in one hand and a spoon in the other...
It felt foreign...like I was in a different country.

A different country describes it rather nicely. A country where I felt lost and stupid and afraid and Lonely...lonely 'cause I didn't have my favorite companions with me--my booze or my drugs.

By grace, I have not found it necessary to take a drink yet this day. By grace, I have not found it necessary for 26 years.
Gratitude. What a sweet and binding word.
I was not grateful in the beginning. I was sick and defiant and an itch with a capital B for the first two years.
When I crossed the line into gratitude and joy-jumping is something I don't know, and it's not really important. What's important is that I did it...

Oh the beautiful life I would have missed had I not stuck with it! It's not been without serious problems that were faced, but being alive is genuinely grand.

Alive. Not seeking oblivion any longer, but enjoying most every day of my life. No it's not perfect and I don't know anyone that has a perfect life...

I'm rambling because my heart is so full of gratitude and hope.

Peace,
Cap