A short explanation of my absense. I’ve been having an ongoing battle with Bacchus, which until recently I’ve been losing. In other words I’m an acoholic, now in recovery. (WOO HOOO, I got six months yesterday). I decided to move into a halfway house because I couldn’t get sober alone. So I spent 5 months in the house. I recently moved out and bought myself a membership here for my birthday.
Since getting sober I got a new job doing support for a company that makes hotel/spa/golf reservation software. I also got a new car. More important than that I am earning back the trust of my family and friends. I’ve got a lot more to do to keep my sobriety and all that goes along with it, but I am ‘doin the deal’ as someone I truly respect in the program always preaches.
Anyway, I am truely happy to be back on the board.
I think that should be: Welcome back from the land of the lost!
Yes, I know what a sleestak is, but I also know relatives that truly did indeed came back from the land of lost weekends… It is not easy, and is a happy time when an alcoholic relative decides to get help and to get better.
The halfway house wasn’t all that bad. I mean I wouldn’t recommend it for a vacation but if you need to get sober it is the way to go. The house was pretty laid back and mainly for alcoholics, though some drug addicts were in there. You had to have a job, there was a 10 pm curfew, you had to hit an AA meeting a day and you had chores to do. Otherwise you could do what you wanted. It had cable and I ended up installing a computer and running cat 5 so we had cable internet. Probably the worst part of it was the snoring. It seems that drunks, or at least the large majority of drunks, snore even when they are sober.
The guy who runs the place, I’ll call him D, was pretty cool. Same with the guy who owns the place, F. If you were doing the right things they would go out of their way to help. If you screwed up, on the other hand, you heard about it quickly. I decided that I never ever wanted to piss off F or D. I saw Frank go off on a guy who came home loaded. F is an Irishman and cusses better than anyone on the face of the planet.
As ar as what caused me to stop drinking, I just hit the bottom. (I ALWAYS drank excessively. I never did understand moderation) I just couldn’t go on the way I was. It was either stop drinking or kill myself. Being a wimp suicide didn’t seem very appealing. I’d screwed up a lot of things, jobs, relationships, cars(thankfully I didn’t kill anyone). All I had left was just utter dispair. So it was time to do something different, to try doing it someone elses way, which happens to be AA.
And it works. Life no longer sucks. In fact it is pretty damned neat.
Congrats!! I have the utmost respect for people who can take their demons by the horns, turn them around, bend them over and… :eek: sorry, I was getting overwhelmed.
Alcoholism has ripped appart some people in my family, as you know slee it is a cunning, and patient monster, so be vigilent, and if need be take it one minute at a time.
Very good on you!! I’ll say it again…Very good on you!!
