It Just Gets Better and Better

Here's what I know.  I once was lost and now I am found.  I was once a recluse, a non-human being feeling doing, and now I am a functioning, respected contributor to society.  But more than that, I am happy.  Daddy Doin' Work did a post on "Achieving Happy" today.  He speaks about the change in his life and what made him realize just how good everything in life is and that he best get to appreciating and making the most of it.  LOVE THAT. 

When you have hit a bottom in your life, any kind of bottom, be it emotional, financial, physical, addiction - IT CHANGES YOU. 

The show INTERVENTION is new again.  I've watched every episode since it started airing.  I find it to be therapeutic in that it takes me RIGHT BACK to where I was 11 years ago.  Which is homeless, hopeless, penniless, drunk, blacked out, without any kind of hope or grace or glimmer of happiness.  I sit and cry and shake the entire episode.  For the families, who are just as sick in their own way as the user.  I cry for who I was and what I inflicted on people who loved me and tried so hard to help me.  And then I'm grateful.  I am so grateful and it makes me want to do more, be more, help more who need help, who WANT help. 

I've been on both sides of interventions.  I've been the irate bitchy selfish scared drunk who runs out of the room yelling and swearing and pushing everyone away.  I've also been the one sitting there hoping to get someone to their bottom before they reach it on their own.  There is no right or wrong way to do this.  To reach a bottom. 

Mine came about 11 years ago, on October 4, 2001.  You know this story.  I was in jail for public intoxication and fighting (YES, ME, FIGHTING - that tells you how different I was when I was drinking).  I felt a moment of something.  I didn't know what it was.  It felt like a spark, a glimmer, a tiny minute moment of what I call grace.  To me grace means a reprieve from the awfulness that had previously been my entire existence. 

If you have hit a bottom of any kind, you know what I am talking about.  No one can make you really hit that bottom but yourself.  Your friends and family try and try and sometimes the consequences work, sometimes they don't.  For me they did, I lost EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.  And yet, I was still drinking.  BECAUSE I WAS SICK. 

I hallucinated if I didn't drink.  I had seizures if I didn't drink.  I had delirium tremens if I didn't drink.  I was the most pathetic, sad creature you would ever encounter.  And, yet, I am so very grateful for every single thing that hit me, that I put myself through.  It WAS NOT POSSIBLE for me to go a couple hours without drinking.  During the day, during the night, I HAD TO DRINK.  And yet now, somehow, miraculously, through working a good program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am not drinking.  And not just that, I am happy, joyous and free. 

This hitting bottom changed me.  I wouldn't change any of it.  Not one thing.  It has made me who I am.  It has made me this person who is hard and soft at the same time.  It has granted me compassion and grace.  It has given me perspective on other people struggling and ability to listen and to try and help.  THIS is all what has made me HAPPY. 

Hippy Dippy guide to happiness.  I need simple guidance and this works.  photo by www.happinessinyourlife.com

Hope, Happiness and Grace are three qualities I want to exude.  I am agnostic, which to me means I believe in something bigger than me, of course, as my ego is not that big to believe nothing else exists, but I don't have a definition of what that is - and I don't need to.  I've had my spiritual journey that's led me everywhere, and I am at a great place today believing I have a Higher Power, but I don't need to tell you all about it.  It's personal.  Just like yours is personal. 

I don't have to try very hard as they were gifts given to me.  I just want to keep that circle going.  I never take one second of my life for granted.  NOT ONE SECOND.  I believe the reason I am here is to share what I was given and keep being grateful.  I don't know shit about a lot of things.  I know A LOT about being a drunk and getting and staying sober.  That is the highest calling I could ever hope to achieve.  I just hope I keep doing the next right thing to stay sober.  I choose today not to drink.  I hope I wake up tomorrow and do the same thing. 

I am here to be a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a good employee, an aunt, a friend, but MOST OF ALL I am here to carry the message of sobriety.  And how very good life is on the other side of Hell.  Happiness is a by product of living well and of living right.  I want to keep what I have and add to it.  So I choose to keep working at this thing called sobriety.  One day at a time.  With all of you.