Caution: Severe Stormy Conditions

Feb 10. Hi friends!! What a snowstorm we had in the northeast overnight and all day. I can honestly say we got a good 8-10 inches around my area and even heard that a few highways closed up until 3AM. Sure its not the blizzard we saw in 93' but its the best snow we had all year and its February. It was adventurous enough though. I started out the morning by going out to a meeting before the heavy snow hit. I figured if I was going to be snowed in later I should get out and give my sobriety the urgent attention it needs.. which will lead into my topic a lil later. After I got back Dad said it was time to go get Mom from work & I needed to fill my car up so we went together.. me driving. After managing not to scare him half to death and a nice hour or so of alone time to chat we got mom, I picked up a pack of clove cigs, and headed back home to bear the storm. After a nice snow day nap and a hot bowl of soup for dinner the evening set in and before you know it everyone's off to bed, which means its my time to blog finally. Now back to earlier statement, about giving my sobriety the urgent attention it needs, I want to elaborate on that.

Just like a severe storm can endanger a drive home, the roof of your house, or break your back shoveling.. Sobriety weathers certain storms of its own. The cunning, baffling, and powerful disease of addiction/alcoholism however does not always have a noticable radar or person to see and forcast an upcoming problem. The only person who can be sure or not if their Sobriety will remain 'fair weathered' is the sober person themselves. Like a community, state, society, or country .. a person in Sobriety has to develop a way of seeing developing dangerous conditions before they arrive to do damage. If a town fails to prepare for a storm people get snowed in, accidents happen, and sometimes people die. When a person in recovery fails to prepare or respond to an incoming 'storm' or 'bad weather' they can become spiritually 'snowed in', relapse, and sometimes people die. Some would say, "Its that black and white? They just die huh?" YES. Its like a terrible accident on ice or snow that no one was prepared for, bald tires, poor breaks, no salt on the roads. This is what happens when Sober people don't use the tools suggested for them to use in recovery.

Because Alcoholism/Addiction is a deadly disease that kills more than survive it, we need to learn how to prepare for the 'storms in sobriety' that could potential bring disaster. How do we do this? I can only say how I do it, and I can best explain it by going back a few days where my forecasting began. I got a terrible flu bug sunday night, as described in my last bog. I wasn't able to make a meeting monday & tuesday I was not in full capacity to enjoy fellowship with others in recovery or absorb any lessons that may have otherwise been picked up on in a sharper state of mind. Knowing that I really had not accomplished anything with myself as far as Sobriety was concerned I have learned to realize or 'forecast' that a storm is approaching. Should I continue to not make a meeting or see others in recovery I could lose track of my goals that quickly. YES THAT QUICKLY. Missing one meeting that I normally do not turns into missing two. Before you know it I am staying home friday to just be lazy saying "I'll go to a meeting Saturday." And by next week I've relapsed because the old habbits that were so hard to break had room to move back in during the stormy period of my sobriety.

Does it happen this way for everyone? No. It happens this way for many though. Slow adjustments are how we develop successfully and when we all of a sudden get a bad condition on our road to Sobriety we can end up off the road completely. I knew the danger of not going to a meeting this morning and the roads were passible. I could have said "there is an inch on the road I will stay home" and played video games, or slept. I could have done that, but I didn't because I've been taught what to do to remain sober and that is to forecast 'bad weather' in the horizon for my sobriety. So I risked a snowy drive and possibly dying on the way to the meeting this morning... I would rather die Sober on my way to a meeting today then die of an overdose next week. If I truly didn't need a meeting then the option of staying home would have been exercised, but I meant it when I said "whatever it takes to stay Sober". Even when I don't want to go, or have every excuse not to do something that will either maintain or improve my Sobriety I must. The more times that I don't the heavier the storm gets and the closer to the disease taking control and eventually my death would be eminent.

In all of our lives, even those who are not addicted/alcoholic, we can do our own bit of forecasting in our Spiritual Lives. If we see trouble ahead with anything and take the time to prepare ourselves or find a source to maintain our strength we can endure the storms that come. No amount of 'depressing snow', 'abusive winds', or 'chemical rains' in the world can endanger our spiritual lives if we take the necessary precautioins and take a look at where we are headed on a regular basis. If the storm becomes too much to bear, we must remember that we have friends like eachother, to shelter us. We need only be willing to reach out or lend a hand in return. No matter what, STAY ON TOP. Thanks for reading.. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy