Willing To Admit Our Faults

[MajestyJo]

Well I sure had this in reverse. Didn't think there was anything wrong with me after I quit drinking and abusing my pills.

I was this good little Christian girl who could do no wrong. That was after I cleaned up my garbage mouth, stopped acting out in my disease, and got off my high horse.

There isn't many things worse than a self-righteous sinner. Someone who use to do, doesn't do it any more, and rubs it in your face and thinks of themselves as holier than thou.

Because of my reaction to smoke, I was unable to go outside and talk to others at smoke break. I think a few people thought I fit that description, some did even comment on it, when they knew that smoke gave me a head ache and made me nauseated. It was like I was to put up with a head ache which often lead to nausea to speak with them while they puffed cigarette smoke in my face.

It was funny when people who drank had trouble looking me in the eye when telling a story of their night before and acted guilty or so it seemed, because they knew I was clean and sober. Whether they drink or not is not my problem and my concern, especially if they haven't a problem and haven't relapsed. Just because you drink doesn't make you an alcoholic. If they can drink safely, then all the more power to them. If I could drink safely, I would too. Even discounting my diabetes, which prevents me from drinking, I don't want the head ache that goes with the drinking.

When I think of 3-5 bottles of wine for a roomful of 40 people, on party night at my bridge club, I think it is funny! They would say, you can't have any and warn me away from fruit cake that is laced with rum. I said, "You don't have enough here for me to have a drink and you too."

The longer I stayed sober, the more I looked at myself, and worked the steps and got honest, the more I realized how sick my thinking and my actions had been. One day at a time, it does get better.

I think this was on the old site, thought I would post it a good reminder so close to the holiday.

[MajestyJo]

A friend sent me an e-mail and this is our exchange on the topic of drinking wine.

Wasn't appalling to me. I wrote that before I saw your e-mail. I love white wine. I just can't drink it safely. I got into my most trouble when I drank it. I did all the things it says in the e-mail. It led to some very unhappy circumstances. Not drinking does't bother me in today and I have no problem with others doing it if it doesn't affect their health.


Your e-mail made me laugh too. It was a real remember when. i.e. Going to a Legion Conference with my hubby. Went to a wine and cheese party. The waitress brought my friend and I a bottle of rose for her and white for me. We went back to the Legion for dinner and I continued the wine with dinner then switched to rye because I was full. At 3 a.m. I was sitting on the knee of the Membership Chairman for all of Canada and telling him that Coldwater was the best Legion in Ontario if not in Canada. If I remember rightly, all the old guys were wearing undershirts and boxers and I was in a red nightgown, my husband was there as drunk as a skunk and we were celebrating the District Manager's Humanitarian Award. I was so sick from alcohol poisoning the next day that I had to let him drive. We had to stop at the side of the road every 15-30 minutes on the way home for me to upchuck. When I got home I called the doctor. It was a Sunday. My husband left and went drinking with a buddy. I had a resentment that he was drinking without me. I had to wait four hours for the doctor to come and give me a shot in the ass to stop the nausea because all there was left was bile. My husband arrived home the same time as the doctor. I resented that he didn't stay home like a loving husband and give me the TLC that I felt I deserved and how dare he get drunk all over again when I felt so bad.

Yes a real remember when! No need to apologies my friend. It is my problem not yours. I am just glald that I can laugh at myself in today.

Luv...JO



Quote:
I am so sorry for sending you something that is very appalling to you.... Please accept my apology... I receive things like this from a good friend.. not that I do them but they just kind of make me laugh.. but I shouldn't laugh because for some it is not a laughable situation...
I apologize,
Maureen

It was because I found false courage and love in a little white wine that I wrote the following post from another site. The problem was I added rye, prescription pills (pain), and food to the mix.

[MajestyJo]

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For many years, I denied my alcoholism. I didn't like red wine, champagne, or the rose. I didn't like beer, gin, or vodka. Didn't like scotch or brandy and sweet laquers, so I couldn't be an alcoholic. Alcoholics will drink anything. They drink it straight. I always drank mine with coca-cola. Cola was my first addiction, so I could justify that but still had trouble with the thinking. That is the part of my disease I learned to identify. It isn't how much you drink or what you drink or use, it is how it affects you when you drink it.

Daffy Duck

1 oz of Vodka
3 oz of Baby Duck white wine

When I drink alcohol, I take flight of another kind. It certainly isn't spiritual.

[MajestyJo]

There is no need to always be looking in the past and worrying about it. I have a mental note of what is there. There are times that I have to turn to the past and take a closer look at what I should do different or what not to do at the moment, so I don't repeat the past. Have I made some mistakes by not looking at the past closer?

Sure but might of anyway. - R

I was told to glance at the past, but not keep my gaze centered there too long or I will miss out on today. Unless something in today triggers something there I don't often look anymore except when it is necessary to look and recognize old behaviors and patterns that need to be change in today. When I am still acting out in what was, then I am still living back there instead of making the most of the gifts of sobriety.

Often when I share my story I say, I am not here to do a Step Four and Five, but I do need to qualify so you can identify with me. Mind you I have had people say that if they had drank like I did they would still be out there. That is okay. My bottom was more an emotional, spiritual and mental bottom than a physical one, and yet when I stayed sober, a lot of physical issues came up, because I had ignored them when I was using.. I need to remember that this disease is four-fold. Because I compared, and looked at my past and my journey to get here with others, I stayed sick yet it was fear of going back to where I came from that kept me here because I didn't want to go back to where I came from, even though I couldn't find acceptance of being an alcoholic.

Not letting the past intrude into the present and living in today. We think we are not the alcoholics and we can have that glass of wine, maybe we can, maybe we can't, only we know.

[MajestyJo]

Even though we don't pick up our drug of choice, often we slip into old behavior and patterns, and act out in our disease. Recovery for me was learning to recognize those old habits and changing them in today.

Recovery isn't just about stopping the drinking and drugging, it is about living in today without using.

Temptation comes in many forms. Often to escape it, we reach for a substitution instead of going to our Higher Power for help to resist.

With the holidays coming up, I always need to be reminded, it is a one day at a time program.

[MajestyJo]

First of all, I am trying to speak American!

Secondly, I was doing a Zen meditation and asked if it was possible to find a common denominator, so that everyone could find common ground and identify and the word I got was "Wishful thinking!"

Our mind is the wish-fulfilling tree-whatsoever you think, sooner or later it is fulfilled.

This was followed by the word "Challenge."

Misery only means that things are not fitting with your desires-and things never fit with your desires, they cannot. Things simply go on following their nature.

My sponsor told me to look at "problems" as challenges. Something to be overcome and to work on. And the "Piece de la resistance" was the word "Accident."

Looks like I may have to 'stink' up the place a little to get everyone's attention.

Hey people, we are family. We have travelled different road to get here. It is my understanding that we have one goal, one destination and that is recovery. It doesn't matter the substance, it doesn't matter the trauma and difficulties you overcame to get here, it doesn't matter what stood in your way of getting here sooner, the important thing is - you are here!

We can do what I can't. God Bless.

This is a post I made on another site after doing a reading with my meditation cards and my interruption of them.

Progress, not perfection. It is hard to believe that I wrote this 10 years ago.

It is still true, the substance is but a symptom of my disease. We picked up what ever was hand and convenient to escape our reality to take us out of ourselves because we didn't like where we were at and didn't want to look at ourselves. It was so much easier to blame others, even the world for all our problems. We were so hard done by and we didn't know how to handle life without the use of drugs in one form or another.

I am not as bad as him or her. We compared instead of identifying. We kept our secrets, we hid in the closet and we thought people didn't know, when in fact, we were the last to know that we needed help and we could do it by ourselves.

Help me to reach out to others today. I have the disease of alcoholism, an allergy of the body and an obsessive compulsive disorder that keeps telling me that I need more.

We make the decision to quit, one day at a time. We suggestion you pick up the phone, call your local AA help line and ask for help. Go to your nearest meeting, you don't have to be sober, but it helps.