Respect Whats First - Sobriety Before All

Feb 23. Terrific Tuesday? I dunno but I learned some things and found a new respect for someone that I didn't feel much towards before. I will get to that in a few minutes but I like to share my day so lets start with waking up as mom was getting ready for work. I didn't know what I had planned today other than a meeting at night, but it ended up good. I saw a good friend in the AM and by noon was on my way to hang out with my best friend for a little while. After about three hours he had to pick up his kids and I was on my way back home myself. I ran into another friend at a gas station where I stopped for coffee. It seemed like wherever I went I was seeing quality people that I had met or rekindled with since my Sobriety's beginning. I don't think its a coincidence that I saw friends everywhere I went today, I think that its a reflection of what happens when you live your life by spiritual means. You just end up making friends where you go. I can only thank my higher power for such a blessing of wonderful people in my life, perhaps he is working through them to make my Sobriety something to cherish.

A short while after the last run-in with someone I got the call from my mom that she was leaving work and it was an early day. Perfect timing because it saved me the trip of having to go home and wait, today was one of those days nothing seemed out of place. We met up for our usual gas fill up together on tuesdays and she followed me home as the snow began to fall. I got a quick hair cut once we got there and hopped in the shower. By the time I had gotten out several inches had fallen outside where I live in PA, I was shocked by the rapid snowfall & accumulation. I am just as shocked when I see someone at a meeting and the next day I hear they are back out using or drinking. Like a rapid snowfall the progression of our disease can be just as rapid and the accumulation of pressure to collapse happens just as quick through holding in or harboring dangerous feelings or cravings. I didn't associate the two in a vivid compairson until I got out to the meeting later on but first I stopped at the Cigar shop to get my clove smokes, probably the one vice left I enjoy that is physically bad for me.

The snow was so bad outside that I ended up late to the meeting by about 20 minutes, arriving the same time as another gentleman. He happened to be the one I spoke about having little respect for prior. It seemed that he lived his life of Sobriety in tension and anger. From his prior sharing and others it was explained that he was even more angry in the past, which is hard to imagine for me but evidently a scary truth. He never seemed to have anything in Sobriety that I "wanted" in my own so I often didn't give him much credit for the program he was working. Tonight I heard something different from him on the way in though, something noteworthy of my respect. He had mentioned how he had broken off a relationship with a sober woman whom I also know, to be truthful she is a beautiful woman and quite a catch for him. That is in my opinion, others may see it differently as she must have seen something different also to be interested in him so. In any case, he chose to break off the relationship he really enjoyed so much. I could tell by his demeanor and voice that he loves this woman.

The point I am trying to make is that this man knew something was coming before his Sobriety. He expressed how she was endangering his emotions, that things were not all peachy in the relationship. He broke it off to keep his sobriety intact, no matter his own feelings he did what was going to save his life and keep him from the next drink.. the fatal drink. I admire that courage, that sacrifice, and that dedication to his Sobriety. I only hope that if the day came that a relationship posed a threat to my Sobriety that I would too chose to have none before I took that drink. As we get to know people more and more and always keep an open mind, we can learn to respect even some people we thought we never could. There is something inside each person, no matter how sick or unnatractive they may be to us in whatever fashion we are seeing, that can make us proud of them and feel a little bit of respect. Not everyone can be perfect, nor be what we want them to be. But they are who they are.. a human being. I await the day that I meet a person who loves me as much as I have grown to love my Sobriety, and when I do I will pray that they never become jealous of my Sobriety. Its a hard thing to do, to let something go that you know you must, and hope it comes back changed like a butterfly from the cocoon. If it doesn't, its whats meant to be. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy