Positive Perspective & Spirituality

December 13. Hello friends, I have not written since I posted my angel story for my grandmother & I have missed you all. I took the day of the funeral off of work & spent it with family, things had gone so much smoother than I had projected & expected, I want to thank my Higher Power for that especially. I started this week out today with a positive outlook, last week not only contained a great loss in my family life but also in my business as sales were discouragingly low. "This is a whole new week, lets make the best of what I have". That was my mentality waking up this morning, running a few minutes late out the door & for once I was not stressing much over it. My cousin & his wife were waiting at my shop for me to arrive & bought some christmas presents, this added to my positive frame of mind & started my day off with a sale. Maybe a good day is just hard to ruin, or maybe my spiritual condition contributed to it all, I won't claim to know that answer but I do know that things got better as the hours past. Night came & things slowed down, mom came to get me & take me to my MARS Group like any other Monday night. We got there early & sat a few minutes talking then friends w/ the keys to the church showed up so we could get together inside. Only 4 of us showed up & that was just fine, it allowed us all some time to share extra bits of our lives the past week. Looking back on the week, somehow I survived all the sadness & madness of both my family & business losses. It felt good to know that regaurdless of what may be unexpected or unwanted in my life, that everything that is good is still there & I can appreciate that if I am spiritual. The group adjourned & I stopped at my homegroup for a few minutes. At the end they gave me a card in support to our family for our loss of Grandma, its contents a heartfelt message & a gift that could never have been expected. My father was overcome with a warm smile of love & my mother cried tears of joy for their compassion & kindness, my skin tingled looking up from the back seat of the car at the two of them. I got home & needed to write & share my day.

Today the power of a positive personality was magnified by the spirituality of others & the upkeep of my own, this of course something I had nothing to do with but instead my Higher Power delivered to me with Grace. I can only share this story of today, yet another example of spiritual principles working in my life & the lives of those around me. The only choice I have today is over myself & what I do, I chose to surround myself with great people who have a great vision & goal in life. Those people surrounded me & my family with their warmth from the start of my day to the finish, I AM Grateful beyond words. I had another 'spiritual experience' today, it contained no faeries, angels, white lights or booming voices, but I cannot say it was not an act of my Higher Power working in my life today. These spiritual experiences do not happen every day, every week, or even month. I do not know when the next may enter my life, but I do know that the only way I can stand a chance to continue to feel the Grace of my Higher Power is by staying Sober & working a spiritual program in my life. The 12 Steps, fellowships that live them, and the people who my Higher Power choses to work through are all things I cannot explain successes from. I just simply chose to belief & follow, the promises of reasonable happiness & a new perspective on life coming more true everyday. Good Night. Good Morning. <3 Jimmy

A Story Of An Angel

A story of an angel.. A great woman once lived a full & far reaching life of love & compassion. She served her God without faulter & when she grew older he chose her to carry a burden of illness. The illness took her health & quality of life, despite this her God commanded her to love & she never questioned him. She continued to give what little of her self was left in that old age, looking after the helpless & the defenseless, giving warmth & nourishment to all. She spread the word of her God to all who she cared for, she would have it no other way for her Lord said to do that. When her illness got so bad that she could no longer stay home, those who she cared for got scared. Some hid in fear, some rushed to her side, some prayed in the open & others by themselves. Consistant with the world of sin, some even thought of what they may gain in her absence. The woman had touched so many lives that when the end was near there could be nothing said but of her greatness or of how hard it was to see her sick. She was a fighter, God had taught her to be a woman of HIS WORLD, she did not give in right away. There were friends to see first, hands to hold, loved ones to look in the eyes one last time. I remember feeling more proud than when my parents saw me get sober, that this woman saw me look back to her with clear eyes & tell her I love her. A woman that made everyone proud to know her, many who did nearly boasted with pride that this woman who was sick was a substantial part of their life. She TOUCHED THE WORLD for at least a moment, I am sure of it as I am sure of God himself. When a man of God was asked to pray but a needy family member, knowing her & her legacy well, he called her a "Saint". She fought for one more night after that, she lived for one more day, giving the clear signs to all who looked on that she was getting ready to leave them. If it was God or this great woman I may never know, but somehow her Love & Mercy lived on even in her death. As she died just moments before midnight, sparing all who loved her another day of worry & sadness. Her selflessness displayed with an divinely artistic departure from this world, as though to paint the final stroke of color to accent a masterpiece. I couldn't sleep, I can't even speak, so I wanted to write this True Story & share it with you. Because I Love You & want God to mold our lives that we may one day do such great things as Saint Lois The Angel of Love & Mercy.

Let Go, Let God - A Higher Power's Will

December 02. Hello friends, December is underway. The countdown to Christmas & all the other holidays is on the way. I hope everyone has a Happy Haunikah & Merry Christmas this season. With the passing of Thanksgiving I have been reflecting on all I have to be grateful for, but also my brain has been packed full of constant movement because of the grand opening of my new store. The intensity started a few weeks ago when the work began on the new location & has shifted into a stringent schedule of running the shop then making meetings for my spiritual health afterwards. I seem to be holding up rather well, but emotionally there are some things going on under the surface that I could use some help with from my Higher Power. I'll begin w/ my love live, not to be too personal, but I am trying to have one eventually. A few options or avenues have presented themselves to me & I cannot see a clear "good thing" for me to go after as of yet, but I haven't exactly been able to explore anywhere past phone conversations with any of my friends as recent bombardment of responsibility & spiritual work. I am dealing with this okay, but have a lot of wonder in my mind which can be harmful to my disease's recovery process. Next I am balancing emotions about family, with my Grandmother being very ill from the Cancer & a countless amount of other health problems, I have been in denial of alot of my emotions & reality. Yesterday I had my monthly doctors visit, I didn't want to stay long because I had to visit my grandmother because she was awake & conscious to talk to.. I had much I wanted to say. I ended having to stay twice as long as I had hope, but I luckily accepted it & turned it over to my Higher Power as what must be right at the moment, feeling a little resentful about it though & asking for it to take it away from me immediately. That helped too somehow. I checked on my shop, meeting a customer & making a quick sale then closing up officially for the night so I could go see Gram. When I got there I was crushed, to see her in the condition I did was painful & sadenning to the depth of my soul. I swallowed down that despair & raised my voice to an upbeat tone, telling my Nanna that I love her so much & I wanted to come see her. I grabbed her hand & rubbed it for around 20 mintues while nurses were in & out to do bloodwork & check vitals etc. I stared her over, as she nodded to my questions & pointed occasionally to some things she wanted to point out. She could not talk as tubes were down her throat to vent her weakened lungs. So much was hurting me, I could not stay long, my stomache was empty & suddenly got a sharp pitted pain that I think was brought through by stress without dinner. I needed to go have some reflection time & to take a break from the shop further, so I went to play cards & see friends, picking up my spirits a little bit more. Later I went to an old friends house & tried to stay distracted, which helped a bit more. So where did that leave me.

I was struggling with "Lettin Go & Letting God have control of the situations & my acceptance". If it's will was for Gram to pass, then so it is, if its for her to rebound then all the merrier. I had to come to peace w/ that & I prayed, deep & hard. Pleading for the family in tearing pains to be relieved of those & enlightened by his Grace in knowing that if she were spared life tomorrow her pain would be over. If she were to survive further & do so in relative comfort then bring on the miracle. I have prepared for neither the best nor worst, but simply to be accepting of what God has Willed for her healthy & life & also for what the family's independant reactions would be. The fellowship & the 12 Steps are teaching me how to do this, through little lessons & practices prior to this, as well as talking to my sponsor & sober friends about it I have come to peace somewhat with what is to come, good or bad. I have gotten the opportunity to tell her while she was coherent that I love her so very much & that she is MY NANNY. That I want her to feel better & I am praying for her. She is my favorite woman aside from my own mother, who I would not have without her to begin with. The chain of love is well connected in my immediate family & we will all have to re-weld those chains should her's shatter in this mortla world, but I am up to the task. If I may be the only one stable enough to do it, then I will, if not then another will be there to step up, that is how my higher power works today. If I can just let the resutls & outcome be up to my Higher Power, then all will be fine in the end, even if i don't see it for some time. Let Go, Let God. My Higher Power's Will is what I must seek & follow, to adopt as my own & be one with this universe as I was meant to be in growing as a spiritual being. That being when it leaves my body will too hopefully comfort others one day. To my Gram & God, I have let go, but not let go of hope & miracles. I will return so long as your awake to hear me tell you again that I love you. Your are my every example of selfless love that proves in all her works & relationships through life. She is a woman of Faith, and that faith will deliver her to the grandest stage of rewards & recognition before my Higher Power one day. That is my belief, & my beliefs are reality to me. That is all i need to rest easy tonight. Knowing one more dya wiht her is a miracle, as one more day sober is as well. We live for today, hope for tomorrow, and learn from yesterday's mistakes. So Here's to tomorrow when it gets here. I have made it through today by Letting Go.. thank you my Higher Power, Gram, Mom & Dad, Sisters & family.. I love you all without ceasation until my last breath & beyond in spirit. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Moment of Truth

November 30. Hey guys & gals, another day come & another day sober to put to rest. Tonight I had the honor of attending a celebration for one of my greatest friends 21st year in sobriety, Lady Kat congrats. While there a speaker relayed a strong worded & effective message that was well recieved by not only myself but many of the other majority of young people in attendance. I will speak more about this later, especially to note though is this, connecting w/ young people in sobriety is not that easy. This speaker made that seem like a simple task. Before going to the meeting I went to work, it was a long day but it seemed to move quickly because I kept myself busy tackling various projects around the shop that I wanted to get done this week. I made a bit more money than I had hoped too which was another pleasant suprise, but one suprise that was unpleasant was one that came early in the morning.. awakening me from my sleep. My mother got a phone call from the hospital where my Gram was staying at to fight dehydration. I awoken to the call & heard my mother repeating the facts back to the doctor on the line, the news was not good. For quite a while after this I listened as the woman who has been fighting this battle as hard as my Gram herself was being hit by the emotional blows, her composure failed as she made each call to the family. My Gram had to be put on machines to assist her breathing, a drip to assist her cardiovascular pattern that was no pattern at all, and later still she had to be leveled out with insulin due to poor blood sugar when she has never had these problems before in her life. My mother had to rush off before dawns rise to get to her mother's side, her strength coming evidently from her Higher Power because she has not rested in over a month because of these growing problems abroad. I had countless dreams afterwards & woke up each time to an empty house as my father had to go to work, selflessly taking up his duty as a husband & father to provide for us & help me stay ahead in my battles as well. The last dream I had was awoken by a phone call saying that I had to get up an hour early, things had taken a worse turn w/ Gram & my sisters needed to be w/ my mother. I do not grieve well in hospitals, because of this I chose to go where I could find my own strength at my shop operating my business. My day began with this, but my journey began quite a while ago when I was faced with my own alarming "call" if you will.. a MOMENT of truth.

Tonight's speaker shared a bit about realizing he had not looked himself in the face for 2 years prior to getting sober, I could relate to this piece he shared. In my active addiction the only time I could look at my face in the mirror was when I was taking a halucinagen & was so far gone that in my mind I did not see myself at all. Any given morning of my life for over a decade I did not & could not face to even up in a mirror, the person I was then had become something I did not desire, like, or more importantly love. I remember wondering for ages what in my life caused this to happen, what exactly turned me into this monster I was, because if I was born this way I certainly "flipped the switch" sometime before my mid teens. I say that because I remember feeling as a child like I had a good life, that I had friends & a good family, and that I fit in. But there was a moment, I today know that I began to drink & drug to escape my life & the first moment it began was when I lost my will to live.. shortly after I lost the love of my young life to a car accident. With that loss I also discarded my belief in a God of goodness & fairness, of balance in the world, and of the possibility of dreams becoming true. These all have taken me a long time in sobriety to regain, some still not fully but the pieces are finally returning. It has taken much time & may take the rest of my life to restore, what in one moment was lost deep within my soul & spirit. That task is something I am up for today, sobriety is at the foreground of my life & is the reason I have a life of worth & possibility today. I thank my Higher Power, God, for this & for being there even though I had given up on it's presence in my life for so many years. Back to a 'moment' now.

That moment I spoke of reduced me to despair & a downward spiral, hopeless & maturing into being my own worst enemy in life. No wonder I too did not want to look myself in the eyes, that mirror would show the reflection of my enemy, that would be like a free nation welcoming the company & presence of a dictatorship or communist nation. So now in sobriety it makes since, but back then I did not know why I hated myself, my higher power, and the world around me. I loved one thing, the thing that would allow me to escape myself, that world around me, and be numb enough to hide from my creator, drugs & alcohol was that thing. At the end of my years of falling apart, I had hit a bottom, one where I was no longer desiring to live & had no power over anything or my weaknesses. That bottom point of hopelessness was met by the last glimmer of hope in my spirit, that glimmer of hope at the black bottom of the pit was my 'Moment of Truth'. I could die & be happy, the suffering would be finished or I could seek out a solution; some way to recovery from this hopeless state of mind & body. In that moment I did not gain religion, nor sobriety in a flash of light, instead I gained a spiritual experience or an understanding in my soul for better words. That experience made me feel that things could get better, but how, by following the guidance & path of those who have successfully recovered. This bottom, the moment of truth, was the cause of my sobriety today. I will always remember my moment, sparing the details for another time, it was a significant piece of not only my life but those who love & know me. So the moments of truth today that come from others, even those I care about & love all the way down to the ones I don't care much for at all, they come to me with more acceptance & understanding. Finally having my own moment of truth, and working the Steps in my life, I am able to cope with the tangles & tragedies that we know as life. I am able to see the great parts of many things that happen, ones that others might see as a pure loss or disaster, those good parts I see keep my spiritual life above the point at which a drink becomes possible. Any day I believe I am cured or that I have the hang of this recovery stuff is a potential day that I will forget my 'Moment of Truth', for me to forget is to drink or drug once again. That my friends I cannot afford. I Love Life too much today to let that happen & I hope I always will. Please pray for my Gram, for her children & grand children, friends & fellows, that this time which God has made so confusing to so many can be recieved for what it is, as God's Will, and that all may see the good in what is happening & to come. Hold onto your moments, they are yours. Share them with others & enjoy life, remember. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Milestones - Celebrations

November 29. Hey everybody & happy new week to you all. I had a busy monday but it was all positive stuff so it really was not a bad day, in fact I'd say it was a good day. After the excitement & newness of this weekend, brought on from my shop's grand opening, I had thought that today was going to be a drag due to all the work I have been doing. It was the exact opposite. I didn't make a great deal of money like on the weekend days, but I did make enough to make me feel the day was worthwhile. I met many new people & there was a steady movement of strange faces as people kept coming in to check out this new marketplace. While greeting the people who came by to see my wares, I was also stocking merchandise into display cases. The once large pile of backstock is finally seeming to be managable as I work it a little each day & I am on track to be caught up & moving on to another focus for the business by this weekend's onset. Mom had to visit my grandma, who originally was going in for a procedure but it got delayed until tomorrow. She made her way back to me & even helped me get some work done for a while before we closed up for the night. I left an hour early because on Monday's I have one of my favorite groups, MARS. It was a small group there but they are always the best because we often get the best talks & the most sincere advice/guidance. Afterwards my friend dropped me off at my homegroup to catch the last half of the celebrations going on there. 4 people celebrated a combined total of 96 years of sobriety tonight, that number is staggering & is also a comforting message in itself. To me it is anyways, it says so much, in fact it's enough that I want to write about it.

Celebrations in sobriety are something that have multiple values. What I mean by that is this.. The first year a person celebrates it means so much, a milestone, a heartfelt moment of accomplishment & grace from our higher power. It is encapsulated into a day or night which everyone celebrates the hard work & dedication as well as the miracles that led up to that day. Later years it is often said by people, "This is not a celebration for me, but a celebration for the fellowship itself & the 12 Steps". What is meant by that is at some point we are no longer celebrating for ourselves, to bask in the amount of time we have been sober & hard at work in our spiritual lives, but rather we are celebrating to honor that which made it all possible & to show others who have not yet reached a milestone that the fellowship & the steps do in fact WORK. These values combined make celebrations of sobriety an important thing to us all, new & seasoned alike. We offer eachother these honors & sometimes tokens of accomplishment to keep the message alive as well as raise hope in our hearts. I remember at my 1 year celebration, the outpouring of people who came to support me & celebrate the success of spirituality in my life. Not one person there could deny the miracle at hand, the values of a celebration turning out to be beyond priceless.

To keep it simple, we celebrate because it's the right thing to do. When compared to the celebrations in our past, active addiction that is, there is not the negatives that constantly ruined our lives & these types of events. For once we gather without alcohol or drugs, not to have a bash filled with trouble & chaos, but to just wing it & enjoy the calmness & serenity that comes from sober living. Tonight that 96 years of combined sobriety, among a mere 4 people, was more than I can put in words. To see that there is a solution, beyond the shadow of a doubt, there is LIVING PROOF that it "Works if YOU Work It!". I can only hope to give to others one day the same sense of hope & amazing belief in my higher power's grace, the same way these others have done for me tonight. I only was able to capture a fraction of the moment, catching only half the meeting by the time I arrived, but that fraction was multiplied by the memory of my own celebration & it has filled me up with goodness tonight. Everyday we are sober is worth celebrating, because any day we do that we stand as living proof to any who doubt it, that there IS a solution. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Spiritual Power Sources - Plug In

November 26. Hello everybody, it's Black Friday & instead of shopping like alot of America I was instead stocking the display cases at my new shop in preperation for our opening of the new location tomorrow. It was a long day, but eventful in many ways. My parents & I started off w/ a nice breakfast nearby home & saw my sister too because she was waitressing. So after a good way to start the day we headed up to the new store & got to work. Little by little the three major display cases began to take shape. Mid afternoon my mother got a call that my Gram was going to have to go to the hospital because her dehydration & weakness was growing too much & medical attention was needed. She's been sicker in ways, but this was one thing we had hoped could be avoided in her recovery from Chemo. My mom met the ambulance at the hospital, my dad driving her & then he came back to help me some more on my preparations. Time kept ticking & the shortness of hands made it apparent that we wouldn't finish everything today. I kind of expected that even with additional help, so it was no suprise when time ran out & we had to secure all the stock not put out yet. Dad & I pushed on & got out of there in the knick of time, just enough time to grab some fast food before I had to get dropped off at my usual Friday night group. I was sore, aching, tired, and I think the day was starting to eat at my spiritual condition. I say that because by the time I got out of the meeting I felt entirely different than walking in, however still sore, I felt renewed by the discussion & fellowship that took place. Just noticing this about myself today brings a good topic to mind & before I get onto the other work I have to do yet tonight I thought it might help me to write about it.

Over the course of a day there are certain things we can do to stay connected to our spirituality, in a sense feeding it "snacks" to keep it full as we would snack to stay nourished. I notice many times if I am busy or things get hectic, I often don't stop to do the little things needed to stay connected to the "Spiritual Power Source". By the end of a long day, providing nothing major goes wrong to make me burst while in that spiritually deprived condition, I end up feeling dull, dragged down, and sometimes even depressed. Like when we sit down & eat a healthy meal, we often don't need to snack for quite some time because the large portion fills us. The same happens I've noticed with my recovery, if I go to a Group or meeting for an hour, I end up feeling spiritually well fed & usually bounce back to a good mood & happy existance. Most days a person is not swamped, hopefully anyway, and they have the opportunity to get those small spiritual snacks that make the day so much easier to bear sober than waiting for a larger spiritual meal at night, such as a meeting. Those snacks can be in the form of phone calls to friends, other alcoholics, or a sponsor for example. They can also be reading literature that promotes positive thinking our spiritual lessons & balance. Fact is that there are countless sources in which we can get a quick recharge to our spiritual condition. "Spiritual Power Sources" are many, some giving little tidbits & some great serenity that can last us hours, days, and even longer for some of us.

The important part is that I recognize when I am not plugging in to these sources, when I am not eating spiritual food. When I go an entire day without getting a snack for the sober soul, then I take a greater risk of letting my alcoholism affect me directly. It can do it a million ways, from just a dull feeling to depression to let my emotions get worn down or add to stress & physical exhaustion. Its a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease that requires rigorous action on a daily basis to live happy despite it. Those are actions I am willing to take, sometimes in moderation & sometimes the not so recommended way 'all at once', but in any case I need to never lose track of my spiritual fitness. When I'm not feeling fit, I need to get to a meeting, make that phone call, or just talk about it to somebody understanding. I need to read something positive or say a positive prayer, and realize that I am who I am & can be my best rather than let a day get the best of me. Here's to the spiritual snacks & meals that exist in many different forms, I'm hungry & willing to share my food with anyone else who needs it. So lets keep plugged in to a "Spiritual Power Source", big or small, and tell someone else who it can help exactly what worked for us. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Thanksgiving - Giving Thanks & Gratitude

November 25. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope your holiday was well spent & filled with the light of the spirit. I know that my day was certainly spiked with moments of spiritual bliss, a few not so grand moments on my part, and alot of great thankful hearts surrounding me. I started my day off w/ an afternoon dinner, my sisters, parents, nephew & nieces, and my funny brother in law. The tone at dinner was one of family, everything tasted great & even the kids ate well like they are supposed to. I was up a little late so after eating it was time for a little nap & I awoken to cake being served to my niece as we celebrate her birthday on the holiday today as well. The babies had cake & adults had pie & other great desserts mom & dad made over the course of last night. What a treat to wake up to see the youth in their element & the adults all smiling as I joined them. I could not have asked for a better day other than to be a little less tired, but I am thankful I was able to get some rest & take care of myself as I should. Everyone left the house, having stops & visits to make & I kept myself entertained for an hour or two until my sister came back to take me to my meeting. It took me a while to get ready & she was early, after getting to the store on the way I realized I forgot the key to the building & upon slamming the car door in frustration w/ myself I stepped on the top of the pie I was bringing, thankfully wrapped in plastic. I let myself get mad at myself, but it only took a short ride to get the key & some thought of my gratitude today for life itself, and I was back in a good spot spiritually for the meeting.

So many more people showed up than I had though, it was a heart filling experience to be honored to chair a Holiday meeting & see so much support & friendship gathered. After a great friend as the speaker we all shared on the subject of gratitude & it seems like a great topic to write about tonight as it coincides with the holiday itself. I didn't know what gratitude was going to do for my life in the beggining of this sober journey, but I heard people tell me repeatedly that it was something I needed to learn to have. I even heard people say they were grateful to be alcoholic or addicts, initially that puzzled me, but today I know why. Having the 12 Steps & the fellowship I am with today in my life is something to be grateful for, without being an alcoholic & drug addict I would never have met these people or found these principles working in my life today. That is something to be grateful for, something that did not come easy & I had to learn like an ecrypted code how to decipher. It's not just on Thanksgiving that we need to have gratitude, every day we have it & make a point at finding things we are grateful for, is another day we have a helpful tool in staying sober. Gratitude gives us a reason to do service work for others, and to carry the message of hope to those who arent yet convinced or haven't found the way yet. We give thanks any way we can, sometimes verbally, sometimes with gifts, sometimes with a handshake, but the best way we can give thanks to those who it matters the most is to live Sober & Spiritually as well to carry an attitude of gratitude as often as we possibly can.

Of all the ways to give thanks, I enjoy giving back to people who need it. Not money, because I don't have financial riches to bless others with, and not always in a measurable way like a gift or gesture. Instead I give of myself, whatever use I can be to a person, cause, or fellowship & the thing I give the most in gratitude today is probably my appreciation & time. There are so many ways to give thanks, but we don't always know what we are grateful for. It was suggested long ago & still is suggested places I go today, that I make a Gratitude List that I can reflect on to remember all the things I am grateful for in my life sober today. I have made some of these lists throughout my sobriety, sometimes on a napkin or scrap of paper, sometimes in a journal or other writing, and I think that they genuinely help my spirituality & growth in sobriety. If I remember what I am grateful for in my sober life, then the reasons not to return to the hell of my active addiction are clear at any given moment. Its the difficult moments when its heard to keep our gratitude, in those moments the fellowships & friends as well as family have helped keep my sobriety intact & helped pass the time needed for the gratitude to return. Phone numbers, visits w/ sober friends, spending quality time w/ people I love, and going to fellowship groups to listen & learn about the Steps is all ways to build my gratitude. Another great way is to just experience life in a sober manner, living in the light of the spirit has given me a higher form of gratitude at times, and that is something I am most grateful for. Happy Holidays everyone. The warmest time of the year is upon us, if we only look past the ice & snow & embrace the warmth of spiritual living. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Expectations - Holding Ourselves Down

November 23. Hello everyone, I hope your Tuesday went great. Mine did not go anywhere near to how I had planned it, but after going to a great meeting tonight & realizing some things my disease wants me to forget I am doing Alright! Last night I had developed a terrible migraine headache & I couldn't pinpoint what was causing it. On the way to my monday meeting I started to get dizzy & things got worse, I made the decision to put my well being before the meeting & that is something I rarely do on mondays. We turned around to go back home & when I got there I laid still for a few hours while my headache subsided. Thankfully it went away & I feel a thousand times better today. This morning I had planned on getting a few projects done I had to, thankfully I got them done tonight instead so tomorrow can be smooth. I didn't want to put them off but in recovering from the headache I had monday night I lost a great deal of sleep & needed to catch up some. The end result everything is fine though, I accepted that I didn't get it done early & w/ the help of my dad I got it done anyway before the day ended. Some other things did not go as planned though, this event was something I was looking forward to & it was much more difficult for me to remember how to deal with it sober & spiritually. It wasn't until I went to listen to a great group & topic tonight that I finally came to peace with what happened. So I thought tonight's topic could be about "Expectations" and how that can hurt my recovery.

My recent lack of spirituality came today in the form of expectations. Monday night I had confirmed plans to see a new friend tuesday evening after they got out of work. I also had plans to disassemble parts from a sewing table that I didn't need in order to make it a jewelry display for my new store. I got a call mid-day, when it came I was trying to get motivated for the day because I lost sleeping time from my headache. The call was to cancel the plans for this evening, those plans I had really hoped would go through. Instead of practicing acceptance & maybe realizing that things could have fallen through for a reason, I let the Expectations I had bring me down. So down in fact that I didn't get done what I had set out to do. Thankfully I didn't take a drink over the change of plans, that of course being the worst mistake possible, but I didn't call someone else or talk to anybody about it. In fact I just left it as a voicemail that dissapointed me & didn't talk to anybody about it the whole day. By the time supper was getting prepared I figured I better start doing something with myself or I was going to sink into a slump for the second consecutive day, the first caused by my headache. You can see how quickly this disease of alcoholism can creep back into our lives & cause us chaos. Only one day behind my normal recovery routine & I was falling victim to myself & selfish thinking.

I got a hot shower to relax my sore muscles & try to start my day over, I had to get past the resentments I had towards myself & my friend by placing expectations on top of simple plans. Because those plans did not go through, I was letting it get the worst of me. There have been times where I was able to say "Okay I better get onto something else, No big deal this just didn't work out". This wasn't one of those times unfortunately. I had dinner & shortly after dad showed up. I went to my usual meeting early, I had some things I needed to get out & I knew there would be somebody to talk to. Sure enough there was, the helpful arm of the fellowship was just within reach, I was the only thing keeping myself from reaching sooner. I realize now that I could have squashed this unsettling within me had I just made a phone call to someone during the day. Getting it out was half of the battle, realizing that I can only accept the situation for what it is & address myself was the other part. Nothing I can say or do can change the fact that my friend had other things taking up their time & that I was not the priority anymore. I wasn't the center of their attention, my selfishness ended when I realized that was the inner driving force behind my resentment. The meeting started shortly after a talk with some friends & the topic was even more restoring of my faith in the 12 Steps & learning to live them. Acceptance of things is one of the hardest skills to develop & we start each day as an alcoholic in recovery with a handicap. That handicap we overcome through the help of a Higher Power & the program, the more we put into both the easier our acceptance comes to us. So thankfully tonight I have overcome the power of Resentment & Expectations that my disease for decades held over my head. I did so with the help of friends, fellowship, my Higher Power, and talking to another Alcoholic/Addict who has been there before. It is through the experiences of others being successful at recovery that I am able to hope for my own. Thanks for Blogging In. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Remember What Our Goal Is

November 21. Hello everyone, hope your Sunday was a Super one. Mine was very hectic & a little overwhelming, but here I am, still sober to write about it. For a lot of people I know Sundays begin their week, I am backwards in that sense as it ends mine & I like to reflect on what I've accomplished or fallen short in. This week I have recieved so much help from my family, I could have never imagined all they would do when I asked for a simple hand helping me setup my new store. Thank you all who helped, the place looks great & is almost ready to be a serious jewelry store. A few more finishing touches & I couldn't be happier with it all. This adventure reminds me looking back not only on the week, but the whole year. January I started this jewelry business & ever since the sky has been my limit, one improvement after another, my higher power opening new doors all the time for me to advance it further. We've been busy all year, all week especially, and for me today more than any other days this week. It was a long day, I was sore, there was alot to do & alot of double working the layout. We got through it though finally before it was time for the owner to lock the doors. Afterwards we got a bite to eat & got home just after 10pm to unload all the tools & stuff from the site. So I'm sure you get it, today was busy, so much going on that I didn't have a moment for myself until now. I'm taking advantage of this time to do some writing because it helps me heal my soul I've learned. Today while working towards building up my business that I plan to use as my vehicle for future success, I heard some stressful news come from another area of my life that I also have been thinking of in regaurds to my future. The bad news came during the storm of busy work I had to accomplish today, I couldn't let it cloud my mind despite how much it clouded my feelings.

In recovery I feel that is so important, our sobriety hinges on it sometimes, so much that I'd like to make it my topic tonight. Sometimes we get very busy in life, stressed, overwhelmed, all of these difficult sensations & situations. It's important that we "Remember What Our Goal Is" no matter how hard or immediate the situation. My goal today was first & foremost to remain sober. If I let any of the factors of my day take higher priority than that, I could be in a dangerous spiritual place that leads soon after to a drink or a drug. So I have to continually balance the tasks at hand, the feelings I have, the thoughts that come & go, along with other things as well. For example today I had aching muscles to add to the pile, as well as work to be completed in a time critical environment building the store. All of this adds extra pressure that can make an alcoholic like me spiritually sick. When you add in the stressful news I got from a person I have grown close to, it can be almost too much to process in one day. I was literally so busy that I have not yet had the opportunity to actually think & feel my way through the situation that has happened in this other person's life, which directly affects mine in ways because I have planned to have them a part of my future. The old me would have taken this scenario & all but given up on the work to be done today, figuring that if one part of my future has gotten difficult to face that I should just say to hell with the rest of it too. Thankfully today I have a great program & people in my life helping me to learn how to continue to care about not only my life, but potentially the lives of others who may or also be affected.

Normal people just take this clarity & foresight for granted, normal thinking is not the same as alcoholic thinking. Often our first thoughts are the ones that used to rule our lives & our second is one of a more spiritual basis. My first thoughts of the news I heard today were anxious & self destructive, the alcoholic thoughts. I wanted to go into a corner somewhere & literally feel sorry for myself at first, self pity is a sign of lacking spirituality at that moment. I certainly was lacking it, but I gathered myself together & went out to have a cigarette. I didn't try to think about what was bothering me, thinking too much was a great downfall in my active addiction, instead I tried to clear my mind & think about what I needed to. My trailing thoughts that have been taught to me in recovery worked in this situation, I am grateful that my Higher Power has given me this ability in this current scenario. My thoughts collected on the fact that I must remain sober if I am to have any sort of a happy life at all, logic was settling in over my over-emotinal & alcoholic panic, the next thought was that I have two loving parents inside working their asses off for the future of my business. My business makes me happy, I love what I do & happiness is the ultimate goal in sobriety. It was clear that I could not just give up three laboring days into the modeling of my store's layout, I got a grip finally. I was ready to get back to work, I pushed the news off in my mind because there was so much left to do & I went back to join my parents in doing it. I tell this story of today's events because often we don't remember what we are supposed to be doing, that is staying Sober first & foremost. Our goal is to live free from the terror of our disease & happy, for once without calling my sponsor or running to a meeting I was able to accomplish handling a difficult situation. The past year & many months of people teaching me how to live right through the 12 Steps has paid off, the practice I have done accumulated, and ONE TIME I made it through that busy day without giving up or giving in. I thank my Higher Power & all who have taught me how to live my new life for the experience I am gaining in living sober. I will leave tonights topic at that "Remembering What Our Goal Is", for now, I have a lot of thinking to do now that I'm not so busy. There's enough clouds in my head to rain for days. Blue skies are ahead though if I stay sober One Day At A Time. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Great Pain Brought Great Gain

November 19. Hey everybody, Friday is a half hour away from being over. The weekend is settling in & my workload is still ahead of me. That is a good thing though because every day things are getting closer to being done with opening the new store. I had an okay day, very sore from heavy lifting yesterday. I definitely exceeded my limit on lifting & am sure at some points pure determination & adrenaline were the only way I got some of the stuff moved around. I got a shipment I was waiting for today, add that to staying sober & I had a great day. Dinner with mom & dad was nice too, we eneded up getting me to my homegroup a little late. Better late than never, I go there to help my sobriety so there is no need to be sorry when I am late. That is something my sponsor has taught me because I used to appologize for being late. I got to spend a few minutes with my sponsor tonight too, he gave me a ride home & we caught up on things. When I got home I did some computer stuff for the business end of things & finally got online here to write a little bit. I'm still sober, still sore, and everything is going to be fine. Tomorrow I will be back up at the shop working and hopefully working some of these kinks out of my back & legs. Tonight a great topic came up at the meeting, which reminded me of something else I wanted to write about.

"Great Pain Brought Great Gain", that is something I attribute my success in sobriety today. I had better explain it a little more clearly. My first attempts at getting sober were not successful, thus being attempts. There are probably millions of factors that can be put out there about a person not succeeding in sobriety, one of the most frequently stated is that they just simply wanted to drink or get high & so they did. To me that is not enough. So many times I found myself getting high or drunk, I in fact did not want to do it. I knew nothing else, I wasn't yet afraid, I wasn't yet worn out. My first attempt at sobriety was through the courts, a forced hand if you will. I did the minimum required to comply without going to jail & I was no where near tired of the life I used to live, I actually missed it. I missed getting high, living reckless & on the edge. I missed the numb feeling & did not want to embrace the new set of real emotions that were beggining to develop inside me. So I found ways to play the time frames & loops associated with that court program. I found ways to get high & drunk and I went back out. I wasn't feeling the hurt yet or the pains of my disease enough to stay in the sober environment & I willingly walked away from it all. My second attempt to get sober was through the form of Rehab. When I got there I genuinely wanted this to be my last time being high, I was hurt from the constant state of physical sickness & my life falling apart around me. A few weeks after being there, I had allowed my disease & cravings to let me forget about all those pains & I went back to the drugs all over again upon leaving the center.

The next morning after that return to madness it finally hit me. The physical sickness was settling in, the cravings began & the panic. I had no where to turn for relief, Great Pain was becoming my existance all over again. The pain of detoxification was even something I feared to go through again if it was necessary & after using again it had become necessary. Having seen those short few weeks of hope in my life at Rehab, I got a glimpse of what potential life could be like without dependancy on drugs or a drink each day. I found a little bit of myself that had not yet turned, this part of me was so deep within me that I'm sure no one else could see it. That part of me took the advice I had heard before & I reached out to my Higher Power. The Great Pain of my active addiction & alcoholism had finally broken me apart, I was willing to do anything to stop hurting. To stop hurting my family, myself, everything. I needed to find out who I really was, the mirror told me nothing anymore. There was not a bone in my body that didn't ache, a thought in my mind that wasn't tortured, but my heart still had hope thankfully. It was all of the pain in my life that motivated me to do the series of actions, events, and necessary things to finally get sober. Only THAT PAIN was enough to do it, when we ask why someone continues to hurt themselves & others in their active addiction this may be the answer. Because like me, they did not yet hurt enough to stop or seek help. It is the hope of all who love an addict that one day they will feel this great pain & take the help that is out there, and that they do it before their disease brings their death. I thank my Higher Power everyday for the 12 Step program that has taught me how to STAY SOBER, and for the pain that once ruled my life growing to be great enough to seek out the help in stopping. In the end, It was "Great Pain" in my life that brought on the "Great Gain" of sobriety & spirituality. Spiritual living today is my only way to live without the pain of my former existance, an existance that could return to me if I do not do whats necessary to fight my disease. "Great Pain Brought Great Gain". So pray that it hurts enough for everybody, that they may make the change & get the help they need. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Forgiveness - The Many Forms

November 18. Hello big world, Thursday is finishing up & for me it was a Long & strong day. The most important part of it is the fact that I did not drink or use a drug, being sober needs to always remain a highlight of my days as they go by. To kick it off my father & I went early in the morning to the building that my new store is going into. After waiting around a long time, then doing busy work on display cases for a long time, we finally got with the building owner & got into a plan of action. Once things got rolling in a positive direction we got more work done than I could have imagined completing at all today. There were some discrepencies with code & changes needed to be made to the layout, actually some is still in the air for approval. This utterly frustrated me, because it seemed that I was told one thing to comply, then when doing it something else was not compliant. Thankfully my father was there & helped me keep my cool & focus, as well there was several times during the day that I returned that reassurance to him. That is the difference in being sober today, I can actually on occasion be of use to someone else. :) After putting in more than double the time into the building prep that I had hoped, mom met up with us & we went to eat after cleaning up a bit. We still have to go back many times before opening to finish the work to the space, but it will come along as all projects do with patience. After dinner I rested my back for a half an hour then had to get right back up to go chair a meeting nearby my house. I was dreading having to go, but afterwards I realize why I do go, because it changes everything about my day & I am the person I want to be afterwards.

At the group an awesome topic came up, so I thought I would write more about it here because it really helps me to apply it in my life. Forgiveness. Looking at that word most of us immediately think we are talking about forgiving someone else for their wrongs done to us. That is a good part of the word, but in recovery it has so much more depth & meaning to work spiritually in our lives. We must begin with ourselves, or none of our other attempts will work to forgive. To forgive ourselves for all the things we have done, all the pain we have caused, and all the times we fell short in our alcoholic/addicted daze, we need to tap into a power greater than ourselves. Being spiritually diseased we do not internally posess these abilities, if we did we would not have drugs or drink in our pasts as coping devices & crutches. That greater power comes from our Higher Power, one that we MUST believe is completely forgiving of us & our mistakes from within & outside the boundries of our disease. With that borrowed power to forgive ourselves, we become able to geniunely & internally forgive ourselves as well. If we have not gotten to this point yet, then we have not yet found our Higher Power & gotten close enough to believe that forgiveness is an option. This has been one of my difficult areas of recovery, for many months in the beginning I stressed about the things I did wrong. Those stresses & strains caused me to look more at the wrongs of others that may have contributed to my problems than at my own self where it all had to begin. Once I got guided through the help of others, forgiveness became a reachable act of the heart. Some of it I think had to have developed from me finally for once, in sobriety, being able to get in touch with real feelings & actually feeling them for a change.

Once we have begun to practice self forgiveness, because we will never be able to master it, we can begin to forgive others. We don't have to forgive them & be their friends, we don't have to forgive them for their sake at all. We MUST forgive others for our own sobriety to remain intact. Resentments will lead us back to our old ways, seeking escape, and a drink or drugs again will return. We won't be able to immediately forgive everything, some things may take me years as it has with others. We start small & simple, as we are practicing we get better at borrowing our Higher Power's ability to forgive & learn to use it in larger scales in our own lives. This whole time that we are learning to do this, others who were already capable may in fact see this change, and SOME of those others may grow into forgiving us. It's those moments of warmth that ultimately remind me of how worthwhile my sober adventure is. I capitalized the word "SOME" of those people, because NOT ALL will or are required to forgive us. In the end their ability to forgive may not ever develop towards us, afterall some people are just as sick as we were in addiction without drugs or drinks & some of those people will never see a program to help them recover from their spiritual defects. We need to be okay with the fact that some people will never forgive us & some are incapable of forgiving us as well. At the end of the day our sobriety and spiritual growth depends on our ability to forgive, not theirs. So we must do what is right regaurdless of their part or next move. We always have an option of not associating with that person if they are that toxic to us or cause constant problems for us. What matters is that we grow to forgive, and forgive to grow. I hope that one day I am able to run out of things to be forgiven of & have cast forgiveness from my heart to the last offender as well, but I know that this world of human beings makes that impossible. We are flawed. I can work on myself though daily, becoming closer to living as a spiritual being & less like a human being each day. That my friends is what makes this adventure all worthwhile. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy

I Showed Up - The Credit

November 17. Hey friends, the middle of the week is past us all. I'm having a pretty good week & hopefully all of you are too. I have had a real privledge in being the son of my parents lately as they have been helping me without end in getting my business relocated & full time operating hours. So much of them & their time has been freely given to me & again tomorrow they will be helping me do the ground work for the actual moving in process with jewelry cases & hardware. I never imagined when I began my sobriety that our relationship or their support would ever reach these heights as they have most recently. Starting a few months ago when I surrendered my license, they have stepped up to the plate & gone above as well as beyond the duties of a typical parent. If I can do one thing right to honor their constantly nourishing involvement in my life it is to work hard at growing this business & in growing in both spirituality & sobriety. I hope to one day look back at the beginning & remember where the real credit is due, with them & my higher power. That seems like a good segway to my topic for tonight, so I'll start there.

Many addicts & alcoholics share a very similar story, and those of us that get sober share many common threads as well. One huge thing is that upon getting sober we often realize or admit later that we had very little to do with getting sober to begin with. We sort of just showed up, gave up, and followed the suggestions that would free us from the hell we lived. It is often our friends, family, or even strangers like in my case that put us in the direction of the help we so desperately needed. In my case those strangers were police, judges, and some very helpful professionals along the way. What inspired them to help me, or me to actually listen, is something that defies the odds & regular routine of the disease we carry. It was not the handcuffs, the consequences, friends or family, not the strangers nor the pain & suffering, not one single thing was enough to bring me personally to seek help & do anything necessary to change. There was & had to have been some sort of miracle that occured, be it in the form of people & events over time or a sudden desire to stop the madness, that miracle was caused by my Higher Power. Some people want to disect their recovery, to break it down to exact pieces & moments that they began to change, for better & worse. I personally don't see it necessary. I just need to keep going in the direction of spiritual growth & change. I need to realize that I cannot do much of anything myself, my disease does not allow or want me to, and that the credit lies in the actual miracle at hand.. Recovery.

Abstenance from chemicals alone would not mend the holes in my spiritual life, just as religion & spiritual practices would not negate substances if I put them in my body. Left to my own will & ways I do not know how to recover, I have tried all my life & my methods have proved to be failures. It helps me to know that I am a simple miracle today, a result of Grace of my Higher Power & many of those great people & events that it has put in my life to shape it today. I simply show up, willing, sometimes even fearful, but trusting because I see others recovering around me today. As I try harder & live as much of the 12 Steps in my life as I can, there is an actual feeling of wholeness & happiness that comes from doing so. My sobriety & my future is contingent on my spiritual condition today, so today I am doing my best to just show up & be willing to follow someone else's plan. Though so many things are left up to me to decide on a daily basis, I find a person who is nothing like I used to be calling the shots. It's when I open myself as an instrument of my higher power & do for a change what it will have instead of what I will have done, then I begin to feel happiness & change in my life. In my active addiction I was an alcoholic of the very selfish type. Each move I made was done in line with feeding my disease which was starving for numbness, sensations of false happiness, and things lacking spirituality. I can not say that back then I was capable of changing the self-centered being that I was, and because of this I don't think I was ever really capable of recovery. That was until a miracle occured in my life, something that I only participate in, and that something is one thing I cannot take credit for. But I can thank my Higher Power. Thank You God & All who you have sent to guide me. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Purpose - Filling Up Spiritually

November 16. I had a pretty good Tuesday & I hope all of you did as well. Looking back at my long career of self destructive alcoholism I can say today that any day sober even the not so good ones are/is better than my best day drunk & high. There certainly were good times in between my rise & fall in addiction, but in reality none of them could ever compare to way I feel each day sober. That feeling is one of belonging finally in my own skin, to exist as I am & to grow rather than shrink as both a human & spiritual being. Before Sobriety all I could do on a daily basis was try to reduce the amount of life that I actually lived, felt, and took part in. It was that ultimate feeling at the end of each day that passed, the one that said I was not one with the universe & that I did not belong being me, that feeling was the cause for me to seek comforts that existed outside of my body. Drugs & alcohol were a way to take an external feeling, through ingesting, I could make them become internal. But there of course were consequeces to this unnatural stimulation of my existance. Those negative affects are too large to list, in essence my entire life was lived unexperiencing everything necessary to survive. A few major things I noticed are worth mention though. Not being able to feel natural feelings, not recognizing them. Mistaking fears for anger, resentments for betrayals, and wanting to not feel all together. Chasing that greater feeling of "high" was all a part of it too. Because the happiest moments to date before getting sober consisted of experimentation of hard drugs & alcohol, it took harder drugs & more drinks to achieve that desired affect. Each session taking me closer to the doorway of death. You can see how quickly this spiral goes downward. This is the reality for an alcoholic, but the thing is a normal person can see this pattern & get themselves out of it, an alcholic cannot. This is our mere existance unless we somehow experience the miracle of spiritual awakening.

My awakening came in the form of pain, suffering, self-hatred, and a thousand other forms of fears & suffering. There was no where else to go, I was at my bottom. Others have reached bottoms below mine, and others have hit theirs higher from my depths. I am not to say that I could not eaisly return, to go lower, or to completely self destruct if I were to return to that lifestyle, but I do know that I have no desire to go any lower on that scale today. I was a scammer, a bum, a bad son & brother, a menace to society, and a polution factory for those around me. As a child I do not remember being any of these things, I remember feeling out in left field & out of place, but these sinister parts that developed were not yet there. Funny that I felt out in left field, because thats exactly where I played on the team in baseball. Coincidences aside, because there is no such thing, everything does happen for a reason. I can recall not feeling whole for almost two decades of my life, and even in early sobriety there were gaping holes in my spiritual life that made me feel like a wind sock, air blowing through me. It has been through the constant love of my family, the encouraging words of a fellowship, and the guiding path of my higher power & the 12 Steps that were created in the wake of all it's goodness, these things have made the healing of these open holes in my life possible. I am still riddled with these holes today, but some have closed a bit. The salts of living daily life do not sting as they once did & I do not find it necessary to numb myself today. I feel steady on my own two feet, honored to be alive in this world, and in alignment with the universe as it interacts around me. I can say this spiritual awakening was nothing short of a miracle, I prayed for it to happen before I even knew what I was praying for. The series of events, people, and things that helped make my psychic & lifestyle changes possible were nothing short of divinely orchestrated. What divine power stepped in I will leave up to others for their own interpretation. When we go through an average day, lets all try to remember what we have been put on this planet for. Oh wait, we don't exactly know what we were put here for. And in sobriety that has become half the fun of living today, each day I maintain my spiritual condition becoming another opportunity to belong to this world & serve a purpose. We are what we feel we are, and today I can feel. Real & valid feelings that come from the energy of this world around me. Some people say why try, when life is so difficult.. Today I say why not try harder. Thanks for blogging in. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

When Someone Doesn't "Get It"

November 15. Hey friends, I hope your week has started out as a Spiritual Success. My monday was up & down. I say that because I woke up feeling like I was getting sick, but as the evening goes by I am feeling a lot better. Maybe I've dodged a bullet or my body has done its job fighting off whatever threat was bringing me down. I still have so much work to be done in preparation for the opening day at my new shop, alot of which has to be done as each previous task is completed. So there is some time sensativity & planning that I have to do, which does not fit well as we know into an alcoholic's life as we do things often one thing, one task, one day at a time. By the evening I was starting to feel much better & got motivated. I lost one of my gold earrings in the shower which was a bummer, but the shower helped energize me some despite the setback. I got ready to head out to my usual Monday MARS Group & mom gave me a ride. When I got there the group was on the small side, but thanks to some behind schedule friends arriving late, a few minutes into it we had a good size group. There was no specific topic tonight, everyone kind of shared from the heart & what they needed to, wich a little helpful harassment from others we did our best to keep eachother in check. Afterwards I got dropped off at my homegroup for a few minutes & saw my sponsor & some other friends. By the night's end it was all worth while to get up & out of the house & I am in a better spiritual place because of it. I had mom & dad take me for food on the way home. So that was my day, but there is a good topic I got out of one of the conversations we had tonight.

Some people "get it" and some people "don't get it". To say it another way, some people have hit their bottom, have suffered enough, and are willing & ready to try something new. In order to try something new, we have to be able & ready to follow suggestions from others. But who's suggestions do we follow? Those who have been where we have been & overcome the alcoholic's helpless state of existance. Some people don't realize the fact that putting down the drink or drugs themselves is NOT ENOUGH. They just don't get it at that time, thinking that now that they are substance free that life will suddenly be great & full of happiness. Sometimes it's that long arm of the law threatening imprisonment or punishment that keeps some of us from going back to that life for a while. Other times its work, or family & friends, that put the alterior motives forward that if we don't stop they will do this or that. All of these situations very well may get a person to take a look at their problem. They might even stop using or drinking for a while because of these pressures. It's at that point that they either listen to others that have gotten sober, they either "get it" or they don't. Some of us, it flies right over our heads & we feel that putting down the chemicals is enough. In fact it is not, the drink or drugs are only a symptom of the disease that lives inside us. There is so much more wrong with our lives at the point we stop using & drinking, that if we do not dive deep inside ourselves through the help of a program & others, we may never discover the true nature of our problems. If we don't find these things out we do one of two things.. continue to suffer, feeling trapped inside a body filled with unhappiness & torment or we go back to drinking & drugs to numb the feeling of discomfort caused by being a "dry" drunk or drug addict.

If alcoholc & drugs is the only thing that we change in our lives, then very little has changed. Our involvement in other's lives won't change on that premise alone, our feelings & thoughts won't change either. It's the fact that we set these substances down that lifts just enough of the fog that our disease has created, that we stand any chance at all at "getting it". So how do we "get it"? I can't say that it's the same for everyone. Some people just have a spiritual awakening & it hits them they everything must change. Other's are inspired by others who have been in their shoes, and they begin to listen & change things little by little. And some still miss the whole point, and they suffer or return to that trapped lifestyle. Prison terms, asylums, and behind left alone & cold are not motivators. Many of us have gone in and out of these places & stages and it was not enough to change us. The reality is that we have to have that spiritual change of heart, it has to click within us, and we have to "get it" in order to finally "get sobriety". Being dry or abstenant is not the equivalent of being sober. Being sober is actively seeking change & growth spiritually in our lives for the right reasons. For the better of the world around us & our fellow man. We have to come to that realization that our entire lives were backwards, opposite the way our higher power had intended us to live. It's believing that possibly somebody else out there has gone through what we have, and that they have found a solution to change that life, will ultimately determine if & when we "get it". Through the help of others I believe I see more of the "big picture" than I have ever seen before or was capable of seeing in my active addiciton. I may never see the whole picture, but being able to see larger bits & pieces than ever before, thanks to sobriety, is what getting sober is all about. To live & experience life without the negative affects of drugs & alcohol on my life, so that I can do more for the people I love & the world around me. For once I can see past the selfish prison that my disease wants me to stay locked in. And thanks to the 12 Steps, my higher power, and others who work these life changing programs I finally "get it". I hope that if you are on the beam, on rocky ground, that one day you or the ones you love can "get it" too. Good Night. Good Morning,.. <3 Jimmy

Living Without Limitation - Through Limits

November 12. Hey everyone, it's Friday night. Hope everyone had a great week & is relaxing somewhere comfortable. I had a pretty great day, although I was really tired from not sleeping good last night. Still having problems with shutting the mind off, but then again I don't have a dog or anything for comfort laying next to me. A lot of people relate to me when I say that settling down at night isn't an easy thing to do alone. Fortunately it gets better. I has been progressively getting better month after month thankfully. Rarely do I have the horrid nightmares that I used to and I think that all comes with consistant good & spiritual living. I went to the typical friday dinner w/ mom & dad, while out we went shopping for computer software & an all in one printer that I needed for tracking sales & invoices at the new jewelry shop. It's all these little things to help me get my business off the ground that make me so grateful to have them in my life today. They are probably the best parents in the world, they see a need in their child's life, an empty whole & they fill it. Love, necessities & even many luxuries, they are selfless & giving and if I could model myself after a human they would be my pick today. After a great evening out I got dropped off at my home group. We had a small group but an excellent meeting & topic. I related to so much of the content shared & it reminds me of how much help people can be to eachother when there is a singleness of purpose & genuine friendship. To open up the topic a little, let me start by saying this. Today I can live life with limitless potential, all because I realized many limitations I posess within myself.

Limitations are something we as addicts & alcoholics do not generally want to recognize. If we are not good at something we avoid it like the plague. Most of us are brilliant in our own comfortable zones & are capable of great things, but the drink stunts us & kicks us back to the bottom of the progressive scale. Why this is definitely is not worth speculation, that would be like saying why is cancer deadly. There's no point in figuring it out, just finding out how to battle it. In sobriety I realized many of my limitations as a human being, I am not God & I cannot do everything myself. This realization came slowly, but acceptance of it came even slower. Accepting my limitations was one part of sobriety that truly began to set me free. I had to accept first that my allergy to alcohol & drugs was indeed real & that my intake of them in my body must be limited to ZERO. A limitation that has saved my life & the quality of it. I realized how little I actually know, but in active addiction my knowledge was limitless & I knew it all. Realizing & accepting my limited knowledge of life gives me the ability to learn good living from others today. Realizing limits has helped me lift so many other limitations that were placed on my life by drugs, alcohol, and all of the spiritually degenerating things that they did to me as a person & my life.

So really limitations have helped my life rather than taken away from it. I agree certain limitations can be life hurting or a nuisance. Not being able to drive until march is a limitation that is certainly not helpful to my life situation, but all the rides I have gotten from others has given me some great conversations, adventures, and times with others I might never have gotten. Perspective has a huge role in accepting limitations in my life today. A perspective that I have grown to see is that Life today is without limitation, all because I have realized the limits I must live with in my life. It seems a paradox, it may be, but it works. I am getting farther spiritually, in friendships, with family, and even in business than I have ever been able to before. It's almost as though unmovable weights have been lifted from the things I want to achieve in life & the only thing I must do to keep the load so light is make sure that I accept & live within my limitations. Limitation without Limits, Life without Limitation, Limits make life's happiness & joy have limitless potential. Whatever the perspective, once you actually get it, once you realize it & accept it. There is nothing in this world that can dwarf your spiritual progress if you do not exceed your personal limits. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Veteran's Day - A New Surrender

November 11. Hello everyone & Happy Veteran's Day to all of the vets out there. I had a pretty great day, spending nearly all of daylight with my dad on his well earned day off. We did a lot to list here but there were highlights, like breakfast & a long walk through a nearby town while tires got put on my car. We did some work around the house after getting back too & I made him watch a conspiracy movie I am a fan/supporter of. I can recall times in my life where I either wanted to be out of his view because of my actions & diseased deeds, or my agenda was tainted & I did not want to put up a front or battle to try & be my own person. Regaurdless of how lost I got in those motives back then, or in my addiction, I needed to be the person I was & any guiding from my father in another direction would have just brought on resentment & possibly more hurting of myself to numb his disapproval in my heart. It's that war that I have fought, which the enemy was not clear, like so many of our veterans have fought as well in every country on the planet. Each country has its own heroes & warriors, I too have found my own within me to celebrate & today reminded me of why I have fought this battle. A day like today makes it all worthwhile, to make use of the precious time that before was lost & wasted with my father. It's funny that on this holiday, a topic came up that weighs so heavy in my heart. It's a word that any soldier out there is trained against, and one that any alcoholic or addict must embrace to win a single battle in their life. That one word, Surrender.

On face value, if we say the term "Surrendering To Our Disease", it sounds like we are saying give into it. Just to give up & let it rule us. I thank my higher power that there are fellowships & a program out there to clear this up, had I tried to interpret this myself I would have been lost in the first jungle of 'my war'. I know that the conflict will never be over, but so long as I remain active in my duty as soldiers do for their country, I will stand a chance at surviving free as many countries stand free today. Surrender, I later learned, means to give up the fight & to accept the fatalily & wreckage our disease causes us. It involves that mentality of "I cannot go on, there is too much fighting & I cannot win". In doing so we put down the weapon we have fought ourselves with for so long, the drugs & alcohol. We pick up tools of peace like a white flag, the 12 Steps & a higher power. We cannot have someone else wave this flag for us, we might get gunned down while they survive. We have to wave it ourselves, we have to want to wave it. We could need to wave it, but many soldiers have needed to surrender & died in battle instead. That is the difference between my war & the war of Veterans'. I can come out of this alive if I surrender & free, some of them in Real War could not & have not been set free. I had to believe that I was not going to be tricked or imprisoned, captured where my enemy would never let me out. I had to be convinced before doing this that there was real freedom in my surrendering to addiction.

When it finally happened to me I believe I felt like many of those who have turned themselves over to the enemy alive. I remember saying something like this "God, I have no other way out of this. I cannot fight this fight. I just need some help out of here. If I go with them, please protect me & deliver me from this hell". I feel a tear when I think that many of scared men in uniform have said this same prayer, only to be betrayed & slaughtered or worse tortured by their captures. But my fight was a different fight, I was going to betray myself inevitably, to torture myself eternally & eventually slaughter myself if I did not surrender. I WAS THE ENEMY. I still am, however I have tools today to disarm myself. So long as I keep using those tools I stand a chance at remaining free today. So long as Veterans keep becoming Veterans my country stands a chance to remain free today. In short, an encrypted ode to all vets out there I want to say this. "Thank you so much for NOT surrendering, So that I could surrender today". New Hampshire's license plates used to & may still say 'live free or die'. Isn't that the damn truth. I live free from the bondage of a selfish disease today, or I die. Today I have a conscious choice to do so. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

What Must Change - Everything

November 9. Tuesday's almost gone everybody & it was another good Sober day. I goofed off for a good part of the day & mom made a nice homemade dinner to start my night off. I went to the usual Tuesday night group & saw a bunch of good friends there, more than usual actually. I also paid for a book I got there last week, it's titled Daily Reflections & it gives a daily piece of food for thought & direction in recovery. It's a tool many people & groups use in their daily life & I thought it should be fit into mine as well. Among the friends I saw I also got to talk w/ my sponsor both in person & on the phone. After clearing up something I didn't understand I feel better about a suggestion that was made a while ago & I am ready to act on it. Amazing how communication & talking about how someone feels can change one's perspective on things. That is something we alcoholics are not good at initially, our disease dampens our ability to communicate & work through conflicts, problems, or uneasy feelings. Thankfully I have been more willing than ever to get out of my comfort zone & explore the wonderful world of recovery. The topic tonight was about Acceptance, something I have written about many times & I even love to go back & read from this blog's archives. It's healthy for my spiritual life to remember that acceptance goes much further than just accepting the fact that I can't have a drink or drug. I have a whole existance full of things that I must accept & take appropriate action to. It's learning from other's what the appropriate action is in each case that is the tricky part. I certainly hope that your tuesday was as eye opening as mine & another day is around the corner if we do what we need to remain sober & spiritual one more day.

Acceptance is one of the things we pray for daily, it's part of the Serenity prayer & it is a "key" some say to wellness & spiritual growth. But what about the things that we can change? Are we just supposed to say, "This is how it is" & settle for whatever we are or something presents? That argument is best left for us to evaluate in each of us, but I know that for me there are some things that CAN be changed & I actively work to change them for the better. It's finding the right "form" in life to model these things after. This is why we must change the people we hang with, the places we go, and the things that our life is constructed of. Because if all we see, know, and experience is negativity or 'non-change' then we will never discover the "form" we wish to take. Without an idea of what kind of better person we can be, or better life we can have, we cannot work constructively towards achieving or becoming that. The best suggestion I ever followed when it comes to this was changing the people, places, and things in my life. I only have one or two friends that existed in my old life still in my life today. The only place that remains the same is my home I grew up as a child, where my loving & positive family still reside. The only things I held onto were some video games & a car. The rest I had to start over, to build again with new found ideals. Those ideals passed onto me by others I met through groups & meetings that don the 12 Steps.

With all these changes, no more drugs or alcohol in my body as well, you would think that this could be enough to cure someone who had a problem with drugs or alcohol. Sadly it is far from enough. Even though a seemingly entire life undergoes change, one thing remains constant, US. If we don't change our inner workings, we are destined to fail. That is where the 12 Steps, with principles & teachings like acceptance, comes into play in recovery. These tools, lessons, guides, and people are what make the metamorphasis possible from living a cursed & ugly existance to opening like a cocoon to let out a beautiful butterfly. Spirituality follows & in some instances is the motivation for this inner change. If a clock is constantly behind one minute an hour, it will remain that way & grow farther behind if left untouched. But if you go inside that clock, change the gears & parts, and then give it power again.. it can keep time accurately & as it was meant to. That is what recovery is to me, changing the working parts within, doing the delicate & deliberate changes necessary to 'tick & tock' in unison with the universe. Without the changes that we make, must make, we are all but lost in that minute behind, hour after hour, minute after minute, until a lifetime has passed by. Lets remember when it comes time to do the work, to accept & grow spiritually, that we must infact CHANGE or nothing changes at all. The absence of a drink or drug in one's life does not create wellness, spirituality & change does. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy

Family & Friends - Recovery Is Not One Sided

November 09. Hello friends & family. I had a good monday, hope all of you out there started the week off right. Yesterday was a big day because my parents & I went shopping for my jewelry store & got new items for the opening in the new location this month. Although some parts of the day were straining on us we made it through the day in good shape. Some would say at times I can be spiritually defected & a bull headed type, sometimes I say that others just take me the wrong way when my intentions are not to be difficult. Regaurdless with very few uncomfortable moments we managed to survive a whole day together. Stocking up on new inventory really got my head into a good space & it stayed there through today. I also have gone through a few medical changes this weekend, which turned out to be completely for the better.. Bonus! This evening I went to my typical Monday group & had the benefit of my cousin coming along so my mom didn't have to drive. When we got there I got a ton of stuff out about my week & the good changes happening in my life. Conversation went around & we all talked about stuff on our minds. I realized alot from the group that I have known before, but needed to be reminded of.

In an ordinary person's life, things like spirituality, honesty, and love are a normal part of existance & showing them is not difficult. For alcoholics we often get stumped by our disease & lack the necessary skills to show or recieve these sorts of good traits from others. Its this hinderance that reminds me of what family members, friends, and loved one's of an alcoholic/addict must go through at times. Left untreated, or in active addiction, the disease causes suffering to not only the alcoholic but all those they encounter on an intimate or interactive basis. I know from my experience, I was oblivious to the pain I was & would cause to others, thinking I only hurt myself if anyone got hurt at all. What family members fail to realize is that there is help for them, even if the other individual does not wish to seek it. I know that seems to offer little comfort to most, but just knowing that others have endured these trials in life & some even have overcome them in profound ways, helps to build hope & give shape to life again that may have been lost or made dull by an alcoholic relationship/friendship. Just like there are steps to recovery for the alcoholics, there are the same steps for those affected. Most might think, "But they are the ones who are sick, we shouldn't have to change or undergo anything?"

The truth is that no one single individual is free from defect, and for non-alcoholics dealing with the constant flare up of other's disease, we can fail to see our own shortcomings, mistakes, or defects. In some cases we become so fixated on the wrong going on over there, that we fail to see where we can be a better person over here. It's a "here and there" distraction that the enemies of our higher power wants us to be stuck on. If we drop our fighting stance, and simply walk with the spirit, we can begin to heal ourselves long before the sick person/s in our lives begin to recover. How? There are countless fellowships & programs in place for family members, some effective, some not, and some life changing. The latter I speak of incorporate the same tools of recovery that an addict or alcoholic use, but puts the power of those tools into the hand of family members & friends. Their ability to either grow their own spiritual strength or avoid another's spiritual disaster is important, and many close to an alcoholic slowly lose their ability to do this over time. That's where the same steps & the same higher power can free the family & friends from suffering. Does this mean it will not still hurt to watch another destroy themselves? Certainly NOT. But it better prepares us for the day they either begin their walk to wellness or it helps us to prepare for the pending self destruction that follows staying sick. No matter the instance recovery is as vital to the family & friends as it is to the addicted party. That is the message that I was reminded of, and that is the message I wish to share with you today. Thanks for blogging in. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy

Grateful Spirits

November 8 2010. Hello all good people of the world. I had a fantastic day, one worthy of writing about for sure. If I seem to gloat at all during these next few sentences, ignore that tone, I am rather trying to express the gratitude for all those in my life that have helped me do these amazing things & my Higher Power for making them all a part of it with me. I started my Sunday off with a cup of coffee & no cigarettes. Half of the edge from the morning start gone, my parents & I headed out to the store to get smokes first, then off to town to negotiate some business deals for my jewelry business. I have had some major purchase moves planned through the help of my parents to really improve my inventory greatly in time for the big opening of the new 7 day a week location. Our first visit produced nothing material, a big stone wall if you will in a potential partnership for body jewelry I had hoped to shake hands on. I did however sell a ring to another jeweler friend & increased my buying money for the day by a little over a hundred dollars. A wasted trip had turned into an opportunity afterall. A few calculated phone calls produced some comforting imformation about the opening dates & schedules, and a second call set up an appointment later on in the day to go purchase some large amounts of fine jewelry inventory. It was a nice feeling to be potentially buying good inventory instead of the 'get by' trendy items I've had to function with in the past months. A few hours to kill we went off to handle other things & I attempted to hit a card game for an hour, which was more like 30 mins of relaxation, watching the clock for pickup time to make the appointment. We met the guy at that time & were in for a treat, not only did I get a ton of stuff I wanted at my price, I got extra for less than my price began at. Bags in hand we moved on in our evening, handling a stop at the pharmacy & then dinner together. A productive day with mom & dad, mostly business & a meal of leisure. By day's end we got home & I excitedly sorted through much of the new stock to be prepared for the grand opening sale on black friday. I got a call to go out for a few hours with a friend & his girl & took the invitation. I could use a break from the pace of the day. I got back home & felt inspired to write, so here I am writing. But to write about what? The bigger picture & how I am just a brush stroke within it.. my gratitude chosing the color of which that stroke will be brushed.

My favorite color is Blue, True Blue to be exact. Its the color blue that when you see it you almost want to celebrate or cry for its sincerity, its gratefulness, and its honest "no bull" manner in which it portrays the warm blue flame of love & admiration. All of these feelings recently felt toward my parents & also a special friend who I talk to nightly. I owe my parents so much, yet the best repayment is to progress in this spiritual journey I have undertaken. The other I owe nothing, but an honest representation of myself. Both of which I am trying to learn how to offer. I may make mistkaes, but I will be willing to try again until I get it right & learn how to show them more goodness within me. One way to show my parents their help is appreciated, is to be made a success through hard work & dedication, self sacrifice & opportunism. To run this both legally & morally & come out on top as a guy who made it the right way. From shambles to shamrocks & gold pots under rainbows. Keeping enough for a modest life & using the rest to enmpower people around me & make ammends. What more can a person ask for in sobriety than opportunity to make things right, if not wholly, then in part, and then in part again & again until fulfillment is reached. That is my spiritual goal immediately, with many other long term ones in the pipeline. What can I say more other than I have not seen this much try & fearless foresight in myself since active addiction and for adversely wrong reasons back then.

I want to thank my Higher Power most of all for making this psychic & emotional change possible, but my sponsor & the steps in my life as well making this process easier with each passing day. When I took that third step prayer staying "God I offer myself to the, to build me & do with me s though wilt" I had no clue this is what he had in mind. I have developed an inner passion for the positive influence a close friend in Philadelphia has brouht into my life, she continually cheers up my gloomy days & throught simple concerns of her well being I rest easier knowing she has endured another day sober & in the light of the spirit. SO I have entirely too much to be greatful & adamant about persuing our friendship to the fullest, skies are the limits if she see's eye to eye with my sometimes flirtatious but always intendedly flattering communication. I admire her resovled, dedication to succed in work & sobriety, and to form that which was missing from both our lives for so long. A valid & true friendship, that if nothing more will last forever if we continute on our paths, destined to collide in harmony one day. My writing may seem a little deep & insightful but I feel a bit different than ever before, perhaps its confidence, or just a sincere driven hope for amazing things to come. Whatever that is that comes I am prepared for it, even if it be a slap in the face and a perpetual cold shoulder. She would be not the first in life, but in first in Sobriety that I have not doubted to prove me wrong. You only live once, & if you don't go for what feels undoubtidly to be a right thing, then you're already doing yourself wrong. So here's to gratitude tonight. May it keep my full of the spirit & moving forward in a positivie & welcoming mindset, as well keep my heart warm & welcome for whatever good may chose to give that warmth back. My family, this great friend, I cannot change more than myself at my best, only maintain & grow from that in the future or regress due to setbacks. I'm willing to face the setback of the future, in business, friendship, family, & romance becaue I feel for once I am doing what's right by all who have extended a hand, a heart, or both. So whom extends what. This I ask.. gratefully for all that has been extended thusfar. You are all loved in a ways unique to your own space in my heart & future. GOod Night. Good Monring.. <3 Jimmy

Self Will? - Turning It Over

October 29. Hello friends & my growing family. I felt inspired to write tonight, hoping that this inspiration lasts through the week & the oncoming winter months. I also hope that all of you have been well & spiritually nourished the past few days. I have had some things happen around me that have tested my ability to accept things the past week or so. I have struggled with seeing the difference between my will & that of my higher power, as selfishness & my disease go hand in hand. I am ever grateful for my sobriety, and it allowing me to have a clear enough mind to handle what comes my way today. Sometimes handling all of it is done through the help of others, sometimes through faith in my higher power & hope that all will work out for me as it has for others. Whatever the means, I am grateful for the 12 Steps, the fellowship, and all the tools passed on to me by so many already effectively using them in their lives. Spiritual growth & practices being something I have just kept going barely in my life, I am feeling a time more than ever to try to plug into more outlets & find more wellness that the world has to over. Staying connected to a power source of positivity & spiritual principles is a definite must as things continue to change & occur around me. Life doesn't stop so that I can just get well, some days this is more evident than others.

Tonight I would like to write about the topic of "Will", more clearly my "Higher Power's Will". It is when I take my will into my own hands that I often suffer the most. I am a mere human, with selfish & imperfect will. Often I wish great things to someone in the form of me being in their lives, how selfish a wish. I want things in business to go a certain way, again my will be done. I may never understand what my higher power has planned when things go a certain way, but I don't need to understand it. I need only not resist what is happening. In my life, relationships with others, business, and even my recovery. All of the thigns that happen as a result of my own selfish disease taking my will back will accordingly bring misery most of the time if not all of the time. It's when I become more & more able to let my will go, and let my higher power's will be done, that I will be more at peace with myself, and the universe around me. One of the coined sayings that goes around the fellowships involves a certain name for the higher power that we often resist.. I will repeat that name for the sake of passing on a good statement, not to create any arguments or sway anyone's beliefs. "Let Go & Let God." That one statement, so powerful & helpful in so many recovering alcoholics' lives. What it means to me is this, that I must let go of my selfish will and let go of my desire to be right or gain, and let my higher power's will be done. That letting go, allows us to hold onto our sobriety for one more moment, day, or event in our lives. This has been instrumental in my sobriety so many times, I have lost count.

When we are able to practice letting go of our self will, we get better at it, little by little. It may never be something we can perfect, I have not met anyone yet that has. But we can get better at it, in turn getting better in our sobriety & better spiritually. I had a few things go on since yesterday that made me wonder, why am I not getting my way, when my way feels so right? The answer is simple, the universe does not hinge on my will, it does so on that of my higher power. Our own lives are influenced by our selfish will, sometimes those around us are also affected as well, whats most important is though, that we do not hold onto things that don't go our way. We need to let go of these things, and let our higher power take care of what happens next. If we do the opposite & hold on, its only a matter of time before our self will can take us to a dark & dangerous place that lacks the spirituality we need to survive soberly. Today I do not have the desire to drink or use drugs, I can only pray that tomorrow will be the same. My chances are greater if I do not clutch self will in my hands until the life I love today is torn away from me. The great things I would love to see & experience in my life may not come in the forms I recognize them, and missing out on something or someone does not mean it will not one day come. It will come by practicing the will of my higher power through acceptance instead of selfishly fighting for my own every chance I see fit. Some battles will be lost at the negotiating table, some events won't go as I hoped or planned, but I can always turn it over & have one more day sober. That is something that is my will, and my higher power's will, and we can agree on that one thing today. Thanks for blogging in. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy

Repairing Relationships

October 25. Hey friends out there. The weekend officially ended about a half hour ago. I figured it would be a good time to write, especially because it's healthy for me to do it anyway. It was a pretty long week, but I can't complain. Alot got accomplished, countless things I may never recognize at that. Some of the best parts are worth listing for those who like to hear about my wins & losses. I got to help my grandmother, indirectly, by cleaning out her storage shed in the back of her house. Family had made it a disgusting mess & I volunteered to help, boy did my back pay the price as I am still sore today. I also got a call about a storefront I was researching, my mom found a new place opening up that was accepting businesses. That call came in during the big cleanout at Grams, I took a break & talked with the management there. We made a verbal deal that I would read over the documents & if I was in I would sign & send them with my first month's rent. After haggling a few perks I was looking for it turned out to be a deal of a lifetime, or one of the best in my lifetime so far, so I sent everything in the mail. In less than a month I should be finishing the final touches of my setup, I'll be praying for sure. Today I did the weekend run at Garden Market location & at least made some profit for being there the morning & afternoon. Afterwards I played some cards, came home, then went out with a friend. We did alot of talking sobriety & I can only hope he truly gets the big picture.

With some good things going my way & a few things that needed fixing or adjustments around me, I can only be grateful I have the life I have today & the people in it. Speaking of people in it, the conversation with my friend tonight spoke of relationships. I have so many different relationships of all kinds in my life. Friendships, family, parents, siblings, each having their own individual bearing on my life & weights in my heart. Each having their own conditions & boundries for existance also. What I want to talk about as a topic is "Repairing Relationships", which is exactly what I was working towards doing with my friend this night during our talk. In turn he is trying to repair relationships in his own life & asked me for advice. I can reflect back on my own life for some of the answers that might have been helpful to him & many others too. I have always loved my parents for example, but in my disease's full swing I was defiant, destructive, and inconsiderate. I stole emotions, property, and pride from them time & again. I used one excuse after another, truly because I was ignorant to the fact that I was different & so were they, none of us knew that I bore the marks on my soul of an alcoholic/addict. It was when the marks burned through to the surface & nothing was left but the bold & painful truth that we all became aware. What mattered the most I think today is that we became aware together, and we wanted to find a solution together. In other words we wanted a relationship together still despite my incurable disease.

With bad odds & alot of damages, nobody gave up on Repairing the Relationships we had & wanted to better though. Some things that probably should not have been done or said were done & said, mostly on my part but I never take all the blame or credit, I am not my Higher Power nor is any human being either. Even with the bad, the good was evident, as a solution for my alcoholism was found in the 12 Steps & the fellowships, my parents & I began to grow closer again. Trust was not there for some time, my eyes were stared over for fog, my actions questioned sometimes even, but my intention was no longer what it was & their hearts were tender so I understood. I can remember getting very sick & hints being thrown around that someone thought I was using drugs or drinking again, but to myself I was true & the truth prevailed. What I am getting to with these examples is that the damage to relationships is not mended in one day of sobriety, not ten, not a thousand. It is constantly being worked on, as life continues, so does the relationship & non-alcoholism related tears can be put into the fabric of a relationship. But also, non-recovery stiches can be sewn into it also. What I noticed is that the better person I become, the closer my parents & I grow. This has become true with all of the relationships in my life, those who chose to remain close to me grow even closer & those who keep their distance grow farther. But my heart loves as it always did, a heart is a heart sick or not. No matter the length of time, no matter if I am the one doing repairs or someone else I will do my best to remember that repairs take time. No matter if I am doing the damage or someone else is, I will equally try to remember that I was forgiven by so many when my Higher Power put the miracle of change in my life. All I do is be grateful for the experience I have had in growing closer to so many in my sobriety, I have been learning what a relationship is really all about. Thanks for blogging in. Good Night.. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy