The Prodigal Relapser: Grasping for the Miracle of Sobriety

. The last three days have been the most difficult in sobriety I have had to face. The fear and anxiety from my cancer diagnosis has been overwhelming. I don’t know why, but I feel awkward telling people what cancer I have, Carcinoma of the Anus, because of the location. Then again I don’t shy away from telling people when they ask because it is the truth. The research shows some good 5-year survivor rates for stage I and II, but they go down dramatically for stage IIIA and IIIB and the worst is stage 3, which is terminal. My cancer was described as invasive, which leads me to believe it is at least stage II.. I keep getting a sense of great foreboding that has me in tears daily. I keep reminding myself stay present because right here right now I am okay and have everything I need. As I have learned in AA, I have been going to a lot of meetings and sharing how I am staying sober through this. I am a strong believer of not dumping in meetings because how is that suppose to pr...

. I'm sitting in my doctors office needing medication for an infections I got when I ask her about my biopsy the week before. I know I should wait for my appointment to meet the surgeon, but having had five cancers before I already know the routine. When she pulls up my information on the computer and immediately I can see that I have cancer again. She looks at me and says "I don't know if I should tell you." I almost laugh at this because that statement pretty much confirms what I was able to garner from her body language and facial expressions. I take a moment to let the news sink in and and a rush of emotions him me in the middle of the chest. Its an ugly feeling that feels cold and wrapped with a electric shock of anxiety. I can't believe it, well I can, but what are the chances of having cancer six times and four of those be different types of cancers. Interestingly my mind stops thinking and I only feel the physical manifestations of the emotions that are...

. Regardless of how the time adds up it's a MIRACLE all the same. The 3 year mark from my last drink it a profound reminder of how fortunately I am to be alive and flourishing because of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. It took 15 continuous years of one (really hundereds) alcoholic reaching out to me to finally get it: The Miracle of Sobriety. Contentment was a state of mind I thought I wanted nothing to do with. In fact if I was not having a blast I thought I was loosing out on "living" life. How wrong I was!! When I heard or read "Don't leave Until the Miracle Happens" I thought it mean not obsessing or craving my next drink. Well, I was way off the mark. Contentment has been a huge realization that mimics the preverbal "pink cloud" newcomers talk about in meetings, but is much more satisfying and sustainable. I never realized what contentment was or even felt like until about 18 months ago and it has yet to dissipate. I also never realized...

. I can't believe it has been over a year since I last posted. Time seems to have passed with great efficiency and calm. I am doing much better and just celebrated four years of sobriety after enduring fifteen years of continuous relapses and the accompanying suffering. Life has change dramatically for me and have found a new happiness that is hard to express. Sometimes the human language is limited in its ability to express exactly what I want to say. I do not know where to begin in catching you up on how my life has been transformed due to my work in AA. What I can say is that I do consider myself the happiest person I know. When I say this in meetings people tend to look at me funny, but is that not what we want out of life. Today, I will make a commitment to update my blog at least once a week as a way to be grateful for what I have today and in hopes that my blog will one day may help someone through their joinery into sobriety. Sobriety can be exhausting, but I am very...

. I was sitting in my doctors chair waiting to be told that my four biopsies came back benign. So, when my doc came in to inform me that 3 were I was very pleased to hear the news, because that is what I expected. The unexpected occurred when he told my my four biopsy came back malignant.  I sat there for a moment absolutely still with my mind and emotions on pause trying to make sense of what I heard. Then the realization of what he said hit me and fear welled up from my belly to the back of my throat. Stunned would be about as accurate a word as any for how I took in the information at that exact moment. So, I'm sitting there and a flood of memories and emotions rattle me like a shock from a live electrical wire. I had to kind of take a labored breath and get my vision to focus on the doctor and ask, "What?" I new I had heard him right, but somehow I needed to hear it again and he did. With that I settled my emotions focused on the conversation and payed close attent...

. These last few months have been filled with ups and downs that are expected in the life of someone who is rebuilding their life after burning it down to the ground. The great thing about it all is that I have not found it necessary to avoid how life is making me feel by taking a drink or ingesting some drug. In fact, I have been able to sit with my emotions and lean into them in a way that actually reduces the discomfort they use to cause me. These last five moths have seen me face new challenges and fears to include my last semester in school on my way to earning a bachelors degree from Texas A&M - San Antonio. I took some on-line course I was deathly afraid of due to my lack of experience with them (I earned two A's). I also had to take a course based on statistics that required an experiment I had to develop, complete and write about (I earned an A).  There were many obstacles I had to overcome, the biggest being my own mind and how it can try to convince me I am not ca...

. The nights have been the most ardguious for me to manage. When the last meeting of the day is over. When my AA family is home living their lives. When the last phone call is made. The time will inevitably come when I find myself acutely aware of the silence, the loneliness, the heartache and I sit with it all. Not fighting, not questioning, not running away. I hold on to the deep resolve I have within for just one more second, one more minute, one more hour until it passes. Then, sometime in the night I fall asleep to wake up and go to one more meeting, meet one more AA friend, make one more call so when I find myself acutely aware I can make it one more day. These moments are the miracles of AA because right now I should be drunk or high running from my tender heart soaked feelings, but I'm imperfectly living it one moment at a time. I don't know where I'd be without the rooms and those who fill them. I've been listening to a lot of sad songs. It seems that I want...

. Sadly after 2.5 years I chose to let go of my relationship with Steve due to his alcoholism. I am very saddened by how things have turned out, but not surprised and heartbroken as I thought I would be. Steve's last chance came and went with him blaming me and my last words to him being "Fuck you!" I rarely have cussed at him because I think it is mean, rude and disrespectful, but he hurt my feelings and pissed me off when he made two statements; you used me and no one loves me. I couldn't believe he actually said that (I have to remember he was drunk when he said it) and I finally allowed myself to react. Being on the other side of alcoholism is quite painful. To see the person you love continue to hurt themselves and the people around them is very disturbing. It gives me a new perceptive on what I did to others and myself for so many years. Steve did try very hard and was just unable to stay sober. He went into a VA program to help vets get life skills he needed...

. You get sober and life just starts to take a course where you had no intention of going. I expected to keep up with this blog since I got sober, but as you can see that has not been the case. My life today looks nothing like the day I wrote my first entry. Today, I am extremely content with the life I am living. My life is not perfect, but it is mine and it is good! I am in my Senior year of college which is amazing to me!!! I will be the first in my family to earn a Bachelors degree and am in the process of filling out my graduate school application (it's long as shit). My relationship with Steve is better than ever! He is sober and doing very well!! I have no real worries and I have all that I need and what I have I value and want. I cannot complain about a single thing. I still suffer from chronic hand, arm and back pain, I am still HIV+, I am still on disability (hoping to get off when I graduate with my MA degree), I still deal with fear and self-image issues, but in no...

. I don't really know if I have the right to complain after the life I have lived compared to the life I have now. I mean things are really good over all, but Steve is gone.  He just can't seem to stay sober and I miss him dearly. My heart feels like the instant glass shatters into tiny little pieces. I find myself being okay with being sad in a way that was inconcievable without using or drinking, but it is a very foreign place that I find myself right now. There are moments where I just lay in bed and allow the tears to well up and trickle down the ridges of my face. Sometimes I put on Adele's "Make You Feel My Love" and allow the sadness to just fill me within. Other times I feel out of sorts because I don't feel bad or sad, but joy and contentment are somewhat under a light colored veil. What is unique about this sad separation is that we both love each other very much and so want to spend our lives together, but we can't when he is drinking. It w...

. Reflection on 2011 I must say this is by far one of the greatest years of my young life. It is the first full calendar year that I was able to not only remain sober, but did so with a gratitude and satisfaction that would never have been possible without my stint on life support in the summer of 2011. 2011 has been the easiest year of my life and it is all because of how my perspective of life has completely changed. Life had been a challenge to get through, but some how with this psychic change that has occurred "any day above ground is a good day" as one AA friends puts it every time he shares.  Don't get me wrong I have had my tough times during the year, but I have been able to walk through them with grace and courage unknown to me before. The greatest challenge has been my own internal fears that are based on nothing. The big book of AA talks about being driven by a hundred forms of fears and this is the first year that I really got what that meant.  Two are...

. I was at a Big Book study about a month ago and we reading Bills Story when I had another truth reveled to me from Bill's own story. On page 4 last paragraph - Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to have no real employment for five years...   It hit me like a freezing blast of wind, that's me I thought. Why had I not seen this before. I also had not foreseen not working for over two years in my profession. In fact I would not work at all due to my addiction and need to take care of myself first before I could even consider going back to work. The revelation was comforting in a odd way because it came from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was another indicator that I am all over the book and because of it the solutions must work for me too since it worked for so many others. What gave me hope in one day being accepted back into my profession was the story of the airline pilot who lost his license and through the work in AA he was given his license back and fly...

. I was sitting across a sponsie who is having a very difficult time right now. He is dealing with great fear, doubt and skepticism. Worse these things are perpetuating the obsession of the mind which can be so overwhelming. It's a clear sign of untreated alcoholism that can be healed. In the middle of our discussion I mentioned that even though I have having some grief in my life right now with my break up with Steve I am still a very happy man. Then unexpectedly he leaned over and asked me with a feel and look of "please don't lie to me" really, are you really happy? It brought up a great amount of emotions that I kept in because I needed to be able to answer the question without all the emotion of the past clouding my message of hope. I know that feeling very well. In fact I lived in in a meeting several years ago when I once again walked in a meeting after a very bad relapse. I sat there talking about how ridiculous it was that I needed a miracle to get sober...

. On June 28, 2011 I posted then deleted an entry which I posted because I allowed Steve to stay.  Today, I am reposting it after having Steve move out of our place for the last time. I have reached a point that I no longer am able to emotionally handle living with him as an active alcoholic. Well, that is partly true the real reason is that I am just fed up and don't want to have to deal with the stress of it all. The benefits no longer out weigh the stress, drama, drinking... He relapsed last week and was drinking enough to get intoxicated, but not enough to get drunk. I believe he thought I would not notice - ha. I did not want it to be real I was hoping for the best - it was not to be.  I lasted a week with his drinking which is no surprise. His old behaviors started up immediately and I could not be ignored. The behaviors brought about old fears that were alway ever present with the knowledge that he really did not want to quit drinking. Finally it came for me to face th...

. Very few people have impacted my life in a way that is life changing and even fewer who have done so in a positive way. Fortunately for me I met such a person in Dr. M back in Jan of 2010 and since then my life has been improving one decision at a time. Dr. M will be leaving very soon and I am genuinely happy for him and his family. Another position opened up for him that will allow him and his family to live their best life. I wish him all the best and hope I can find another person who can help me continue to grow as he has helped me do. Funny things about finding another person is that we did such great work that I may not need it for the kind of therapy we did. I have no illusions that I am perfect, but today I am emotionally healthy or at lest the healthiest I have ever been. Therapy has been an important part of my recovery and I don't think I could have stayed sober and grown as much as I have without it. What is important for me in therapy is that it be a relationshi...

. I knew Steve and I moving in together would bring challenges, but I just did not realize I would struggle with being more compassionate to Steve’s struggles. I remember how moody I was when I first tried to get sober. I remember the mood swings for no apparent reason, the strength of the emotions that would vertebrate through my body, the frustration at myself for not being able to control how I feel. I even remember the confusion at having so many emotions all at once and worse having emotions I did not have names for. So you would think I would be able to be okay with Steve’s struggles, but I find myself frustrated at my own limitations. Generally I am okay with his emotional swings, but where I struggle is when he is okay and want to be a loving couple again. Of course that happens, but he wants it to happen instantly or on his time. This does not allow me the time to work with my emotions on my time and I am afraid if I do not go with the flow I will make him angry, frustrated ...

. I just left my therapist office and left felling worse off than when I went in. That really never happened before and it is because I had a better idea of how bad things are for me with Steve. Really it is that I am not getting it in the way a healthy person (person who has healthy boundaries) does. Then out of no where Steve calls and tells me he is done and ready to go into detox. I'm excited, but cautious because I just don't believe it, I just have hope for it. I am so glad he called because I did not think he really believes me when I say this is it. In fact my therapist does not believe it either, but that is okay. I know I'm done because I'm just too tired and my feelings are waining. I do not want to live the life I have been living with him another day, I just can't do it and I really like my life when "Drunk Steve" is not around. I arrive to pick him up, but before I leave I make sure we are on the same page. I don't want to leave with...

. I’ve been back from my 28 day meditation retreat 10 days and I am overwhelmed with Steve’s drinking. I don’t know how much more I can handle and I feel like I am going to break real soon.  The man I fell in love with I rarely see and I miss him very much. The man I have to spend my time with in the hopes of getting the real sober Steve is slowly breaking me. If Steve does not get sober soon I don’t think I will be able to continue our relationship. Last night I became so disgusted and upset with his drinking that I could not sleep and I became so upset and overwhelmed that drinking started to enter my mind and I kept telling myself that I would not drink, but I can’t take those thoughts lightly. Those kind of thoughts are killers and if left unattended will get the best of me. Steve has a hard time seeing himself with honest eyes. He thinks he is sober when drinking when he really is drunk. I know he feels bad about it and he feels worse about himself when he sees how it affect...

. My last depressive phase really took a lot out of me and it affected my motivation. I really have not been motivated to write or do much of anything else in several weeks. On the other hand one of the greatest gifts that sobriety makes possible is it allows me to continue moving forward regardless of how I feel. So, when I booked my first workshop as a presenter I put myself on the line on so many fronts. I have been wanting to do a professional workshop for several years now and it was a big deal. The last time I tried I was not sober and the pressure got to me so bad that I went on a major binge that cost me the greatest job I ever had and caused a lot of people to deal with the consequences of believing in me. I hurt many people because of my drinking within my profession. That was back in January of 2009. I am a sign language interpreter and I am one of the 5% of Americans who love their job. I am also a recovering alcoholic who finally got it! Early on in my career I realized...