TOLERANCE, ACCEPTANCE AND LOVE

Hey there people! I survived my shopping trip with Angel, her friend ended up cancelling at the last minute, so it was just me and my baby. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun. In the group home, each gurl is given $500.00 once a year for clothing, so Angel had half of that with her. I learned a lot about me during our travels! For one thing, I am no longer jealous about all the teeny tiny little gurls running around out there! Angel is a perfect little size 6, which would be a size 4 in American! I noticed when she was trying on clothes, that she had no qualms about it, she chose things that she liked, after asking my opinion. I also found out that I missed that most fun part of being a teenager. For me, clothes shopping is always, shall we say, traumatic? I have a very skewed self image, indeed to the point that, what I see, is often so distorted, that I cannot rely on my own judgement. So for me, the shopping brought up some old feelings, and that is really no surprise, as I am staying clean and sober. My sh*tty committee is trying to sabotage me by challenging my worthiness, through my body image. Thank God, I have a counsellor who knows me so well. We spent yesterday, helping to get me back on a good track.

Here is today's Daily Reflection reading, and as usual, it speaks to me about self acceptance...

The only requirment for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pg. 139

I first heard the short form of the Third Tradition in the Preamble. When I came to AA, I could not accept myself, my alcoholism, or a Higher Power. If there had been any physical, mental, moral or religious requirements for membership, I would be dead today. Bill W. said in his tape that the Third Tradition is a charter for individual freedom. The most impressive thing to me is the feeling of acceptance from members who were practicing the Third tradition by tolerating and accepting me. I feel acceptance is love and love is God's will for us.

Today I am grateful/thankful for the following...

• my feelings are nor facts
• I can be happy for someone else's good fortune
• shopping with a teenager can be a character building experience for me
• I have more new blooms in my garden today
• my "Boys" won against the Yankees last night
• once I have accepted something, it no longer holds me prisoner
• I am learning to love my body, one part at a time- I have cute little feeties!
• Angel has decided to come back home to momma!
• I have a safe place to lay my head at night
• if my day sucks, I can start it over
• to learn that love for self and others does not have to hurt anyone
• to be clean and sober today
• all of my fellow bloggers, yes, that means YOU!

Off to take pictures of my garden/jungle... If ya want to view my slideshow, click on view all images... Stalk to ya soon...

ENTERING A NEW DIMENSION

I have been blessed in my life that a couple of struggling alcoholics have reached out to me lately. Make no mistake, I do not take this lightly, nor do I let this be a measure of my own importance. I have had some really rough times in recovery, as we all have had. I have felt the need to go back out there on a number of occasions too, as a few of us have. I am no different, no better, no worse than any of my fellow AA's. If in any way I can impact the life of just one person suffering from this disease, then my work has only just begun. If , in my life, I can carry the message that for me, AA IS the easier, softer way, then perhaps I am doing a little giving back. We can only keep what we have so graciously been given if we give it away. For me that means embracing this program of recovery and all of the promises that have come true for me today. It means I will ask only to know what His will is for me and to have the courage to carry this out. It means I will love and accept myself today, in all my freakishness and all of my imperfections, because as a good friend often reminds me, I AM God's baby gurl!

Here is today's Daily Reflection's...

In the late stages of our drinking, the will to resist has fled. Yet when we admit complete defeat and when we become entirely ready to try AA principles, our obsession leaves us and we enter a new dimension- freedom under God as we understand Him.
As Bill Sees It pg.283

I am fortunate to be among the ones who have had this awesome transformation in my life. When I entered the doors of AA, alone and desperate, I had been beaten into willingness to believe anything I heard. One of the things I heard was "This could be your last hangover, or you can keep going round and round." The man who said this obviously was a whole lot better off than I. I liked the idea of admitting defeat and I have been free ever since! My heart heard what my mind never could: "Being powerless over alcohol is no big deal." I'm free and I'm grateful!

I remember so many years ago, at the very first meeting that I had found the courage to take that mile long walk and receive my first white chip. The man who was doing the chips that night said "This is a full refund guarantee, if the results of this program are not satisfactory to you, you can return to your misery." Everybody laughed at his humour, but at the time I thought, how ridiculous, who in their right minds would choose to go back to all of the misery that drinking caused us. The answer is simple for me today: No one!!! If and when we make a decision to pick up that first drink or drug, we are not in our right minds. For me my right mind includes allowing my HP to lead me, having gratitude for the absence of the obsession to use and carrying the message in all of my affairs!

Today I am grateful/thankful for the following:

• that there are people today that want what I have
• that there are many people out there whose program I desire- serenity, self acceptance, many 24 hours of recovery
• that dAAve pointed out that my video distracted him from reading my post- Hey dAAve...I disabled it just for you!
• I live in a safe and loving home today
• I have been eating actual food for breakfast
• I am free from the obsession to drink/use today
• all of my wonderful AA friends who share their E, S and H with me, and their difficulties too!
• I am learning to not judge me for the mistakes I make, but to find out what I can learn from them
• ALL OF YOU!!!

SA-TUR-DAY and ALL IS WELL

It seems I have successfully completed another week... There was a time not that long ago, when I would wake up dreading each and every day. I'm not quite at the point where "everyday a new adventure", however I have , apparently, passed the point of " aww, f-k, another day to deal with! In just a little over eight months, my life has seemingly been transformed from dull, bleak, get-through-it-however-I-can to wow another brand new day! I must give credit where credit is due though, for I, on my own, could never have achieved such a miracle in this 'lil Lushgurls life!

As I have mentioned a time or two before... Kudos to AA for f-king up my drinking career! It seems that ones' first exposure to the program, changes ones' perspective about ones' drinking to the point where , it is never quite the same! Granted, by the time I attended my first AA meeting, my drinking was no longer social, not by any stretch of even the most vivid imagination. The thing, for me, was that I had heard a few things in ' that stupid meeting' that hit a little too close to home. You see, like any good little alcoholic, the progression of my illness took me to places that a few years before I never would have gone (read the places where I could still sit in judgement of others as ' I was not THAT bad'... ) As long as I could see someone who was in worse (alcoholic ) shape than I, it was easy to justify that I was not an alcoholic!!! Anyone relate to that?

Fast forward however many years necessary to the point where drinking ( and/or using ) consumed my every waking thought and action. I had been in and out of the program a few times by this point. I had achieved certain milestones in my recovery in the way of a couple of one year medallions. I had managed to do a certain amount of personal inventory taking and making some amends. But I never truly 'got honest' with YOU, me and my Higher Power. Result...back out once again to see how much further down the scale I could slither! Yup. THEY said that maybe if I was "painstaking about this phase of my recovery, I would be amazed before I was half-way through", and once again, I rewrote this to mean that maybe I was recovered enough to drink normally...

And back out I went again, all for the greater good though... it was research I was doing, yeah that's it, I was ever-so- selflessly proving to you, me and cousin Billy, that 'once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic'. Of course I threw myself whole heartedly into my research project. I traveled in new, lower circles, I did things I would never have imagined myself doing. I achieved a new low (high?) in self-loathing, yup even I could not have envisioned how much worse I was actually capable of feeling about me and life in general. It was like someone had sucked all the fun out of the pursuit of drunken-ness for me, but dammit, I'm NO quitter!!! I figured if I changed the kind of alcoholic beverage I over indulged in, that maybe I could drink like an earthling. Maybe if I only drank alone, well ok, I knew at this point that I could not drink like an earthling, but NO ONE was around to see it!

It seemed my impending demise was not to be quick and painless and in the privacy of my own home. No , not me. My demise was slow and painful and always (in one way or another) blatantly obvious to all but me. Yes, I have another example for you (you're welcome)... It was a Friday night, I remember it not at all, I had finished work and gone to my local liquor store to stock up on my beverages for the upcoming week (famous last words). Saturday morning I awoke, not in my bed, but on the couch, in my 'living' room. I knew before I even opened my eyes that something was not right. OWWW, my face hurt. OWWWWW, my knee was killing me and OWWWWWWW, how the hell did I manage to scrape the entire bottom of my left arm, and why am I not wearing my jeans..... up the stairs I stumbled to get ready for work, which was in less than an hour . I passed the mirror in the bathroom on my way to the shower, and caught a glimpse of someone who was Definately NOT me!!!

It appeared that Lushgurl had been transformed from a fairly normal looking-to-the-outside-world gurl, into a very scary picture indeed. I did not one but two double takes! I couldn't believe what I was seeing looking back at me, I looked like I had gone a few rounds with a much bigger, more sober person, who had walked away with the WWF belt. I had a very swollen and blackened eye, my face was scraped form forehead to chin, and I had absolutely NO IDEA what had happened to me. The worst part (' cause things were never as bad as they seemed) was that I did have to be at work in less than an hour, and where did I work you wonder? In a Deli that was in a bar!!! Irony was never wasted on me... I pondered the idea of calling in sick, but alas, I was one of only two employees and as the 'manager' and Saturday being our busiest day and employee #2 having less than two weeks experience, my ponderance was short-lived.

The funny thing was, in that funny, glad-it's-you-not-me kind of way.... that I got very few reactions to my new and improved appearance. Yes there were a few sympathetic looks, and a couple of clients did ask me if I was OK, but for the most part, people would just try to avoid looking directly at me! Did wonders for my self-esteem , really. Of course there was one guy, a kind of adopted father if you will, who every time I limped by to serve a customer, looked angrier and angrier. At a slow moment on a very busy Saturday, he finally came into my kitchen. I could see that he was quite angry (at me?), he stormed up to me and demanded to know "who did this to you, I'll go out and shoot him myself?"... Gawd, if only I could will the ground beneath me to gape open and swallow me up, I would have. The 'best' part? He did NOT believe that I had done that to my self!!! He asked me several times through the course of that very long Saturday to 'just tell me who did this, I'll fix him up good!'.

I could go on with many more like stories to impress upon you the fact that I am and always will be, an alcoholic. But you've probably been there a time or two yourself, and if you haven't, trust me, you are definately not missing much!!! The point is, that today I woke up in my own bed, alone ( yeah some days that sucks) and I remember going to bed, and I don't have many beautiful unexplainable colours all over my body, and I don't wake up full of fear and dread each and every day. Today I can have whatever kind of a day I choose. It can be fun and spent with loved ones, it can be quiet, enjoyed in solitude, but it can be GOOD. For that I am grateful to every alcoholic I have ever met, the drinking and sober ones, and most of all, to all of you in recovery who share their experience , strength and hope with me. Have a GREAT Saturday every one!!!