Monday, May 27, 2013

Pleas of my grandmother

Today didn't start like any other day off. I decided to skip my morning 7am AA meeting to sleep in. I went go visit my grandmother who hasn't been feeling too well. She looked paled and was feeling restless. I stayed for a couple of hours. My family decided to have an impromptu memorial day cookout. While everyone was out getting supplies things took a turn for the worse. My grandmother started slipping in and out of consciousness. She was losing feeling in her body and feeling cold. We tried to give her a nebulizer, hoping it would relieve some of her symptoms. It did not. At this point I thought the best course of action was to take her the hospital. She couldn't really move so we had to help her. That was when she started saying that she was dying. That's when she said to leave her in the house to die. Before my eyes one of my greatest fears was being brought to reality. I cannot bear to watch this woman go through any pain let alone hear her pleas of defeat. We continued to press forward. We reached the top of the stairs. She had no will to even attempt going down. We still pressed forward. She asked for an ambulance. We told her we could take her. At this point I lifted her up and carried her down the stairs. The entire time she was asking me to pray for her and that she couldn't go on. I get her to the bottom. She sits on the couch. She is still coming in and out of consciousness. As she sits on the couch she defecated on herself. I stand my grandmother up to allow her to relieve herself over a trash bin. My Aunt cleans my grandmother. It turns out to be blood. My cousins arrive on the scene. They gripe about us calling the ambulance. I brush it off. I explain the logic behind it, they still gripe.

We get into a heated argument and I let my emotions get the better of me. I apologized later. I could not cope with the situation or my feelings. I was supposed to go to the hospital but instead I stayed in the parking lot and called my sponsor. He didn't answer. I called another guy in the program he didn't answer. I called a guy from lcc. My former church in CT. He  knows all about AA and addiction. I knew if I had gotten into my car that I was going to drink. He talked me off my potential slip. He asked me "Why did I want to drink?" I told him I didn't like what I was feeling and the best way to get rid of my feelings was to drink. I am well aware that my grandmother is going to die eventually and quite possibly soon. The reality of the situation is that I am no where near ready to handle that situation. Sobriety doesn't make my life any easier but it lets me deal with it. It makes me face reality for the good or bad that may happen. I went to a meeting and started feeling better when I saw all the familiar faces. After seeing my friend tonight and her telling me how proud of me she was for the strength I had not to drink during this moment of doubt made me feel better too. Its one day at a time. We never know what is going to happen.


Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Can't sleep

I have been trying to sleep for the last hour and I just can't seem to. I'm not overly concern with anything and I actually feel more peaceful today then I have felt in a long time. I read some of my AA books tonight and the pages I read were really really interesting. It was mostly dealing with spirituality and the concept of a higher power. Two sentences really struck out at me. The first was "we tend to suffer from our own intellectuality."

That was a pretty deep statement to me. I have always been my worst enemy. Too much introspection, too much dwelling on the could ofs and should ofs. Too many thoughts of where did I go wrong. Sometimes it's terrible to be conscious of one's own suffering and be "powerless" to do anything about it. Sobriety and the journey has definitely brought these issues to the forefront. The program is making me work on not only my thinking but my faith. Intellectualism has been a hindrance instead of a tool. I learned that I could make it an asset, the first step is to learn to humble myself. I'll talk about the next sentence in a post tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Guess I need to start posting again

I haven't posted in a while. I am typically an open book, while that is great in many aspects, it also dangerous. I have dealt with my public persona being who I "really" am for years. I think it has finally caught up with me. I have decided to quit drinking for the umpteen time. This time there are two very big and radical differences. The first being that I crashed my car. The second is that this time I decided to go to AA.

When I woke up to my damage vehicle with no recollection of how it happen, I realized that I needed to make a change. I've tried to do it on my own and ended right back to boozing more than before. Currently, I am at 46 days sober. I am a mental mess who feels like the only real progress is intellectual acceptance that I have a disease of alcoholism. I have learned a lot in my short time in AA. I've come to understand the multiple facets of the disease called alcoholism. Before I thought it was just about the drinking itself. Nothing, can be further from the truth. It really is about how we (the alcoholic) think. It is about suffering from the disease of more, its less demeaning name. I decided that I needed to start blogging again because I need to get out of my own head and give some relief to the debating society going on in my head.