The Winds Of Change

June 10. Thirsty thursday is almost over & I managed not to give my alcoholism the drink it wants. Another thing it wants is for me to be dead, with the grace of my higher power it has not gotten that either. The highest tribute I can pay to it for the miracles in my life today is to die sober & join my higher power one day a free spirit. All that aside today was good. I had some bad dreams in the early morning & evidently my father calmed me some because he was up for work. I caught up on some sleep & in the afternoon got changed & went out with a friend for a while. We headed back home at 7 & I went to my usual meeting in hamlin, a great message & a great group of people as always were there. I came home to my father doing something above & beyond what most would see necessary in terms of helping his recovering son. For that all I am ever grateful for he & my mother being in my life, another way my higher power is working through people around me.. by giving me them.

The meetings topic tonight was "Change". The song 'Winds of Change" came to my mind, that serene whistling part between verses was always calming to me when I heard it. Then I thought about not the wind, but a gentle breeze. I got deep & considered my life up to this point, all the tests & trials. All the times when I was at my end for something to pull through & save me.. carried perhaps by the winds of change. Picture a hot day, say 100 degrees. Your outside working, maybe walking a far distance. On the verge of heat stroke or worse all of a sudden as an act of nature or perhaps our higher power, just in time a gentle breeze blows through. We are able to go on, relieved of the overpowering heat. That is alot like my life, things were getting hot & I was about to die, be it overdose or organ failure was a potential option as well back then. When I stopped to figure out how I could get out of this heat, my higher power sent that breeze, the winds of change to enter my life.

I have certainly changed, it was my only way to survive my disease. I tried for 14 years to change so much, all so that I could go on with the rest of my life in peace & happiness. I could not though. Nothing I tried or could think of would work. That is why I had to change everything, most importantly myself but also people, places, things, and the way I think. I had to use someone else's way of doing things, adpot it as my own & change in order to break free from my alcoholic mind that was taking me to a certain death. Doing it my way was broken, so it REQUIRED change. I had to model these changes after those who were successfully sober around me, those that would teach & share these changes with me.

In the end I have come a long way, all thanks to changes. Change is something that must be constant in my life, because I am not yet close to the person I wish to be. That's not to say that I am not a good person, I will let others be the judge of that for themselves, but I want to be better & better. So long as I continue to thrive off of change for the better, falling short still takes me inches closer to the person I wish to be. That person lives of spiritual means, to grow & help others, taking only for themselves the happiness given off by others & most of all sober & strong. I have an enemy within myself, an alcoholic of old that is cunning, baffling, & powerful. To change who is in control I must be able & willing to borrow the strength, tools, and ultimately the power from others who have it. My higher power, family, sponsor, support group, all my real friends, and all whom I have or will love in my lifetime.. I thank you for getting me this far, one more day sober, through each change may we get closer to our goals together. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy