It's Friday

It's Friday and I am glad the week is over. I had the pleasure of chairing another meeting on Tuesday, once more as a last-minute replacement. Yay!

Today is my favorite meeting, the one where I make coffee. I like doing it. I get a lot of compliments, and that's nice, but I really just like knowing that people like it enough to say something. I think I would get the same pleasure out of overhearing someone say "this is great coffee" and getting a direct compliment. Is that weird?

I've finally started working on the layout of the blog again. I think I may make the jump to my own site and server soon, figuring out how to do what I want within the confines of Blogger is just too much trouble. I'll have to look around for some free blogging software.

Well, off to work.

Happy recovery!

A Rainy Sunday

It's a rainy Sunday with my kids ... stuck inside and slowly going crazy. No one should have to be locked inside a 1 bedroom apartment with two boys, 5 and 8 years old. It makes waterboarding sound like fun. Okay, maybe I am making it sound worse than it really is. ;-)

I was forced to (er, had the opportunity to) chair my first meeting on Friday. What a joy! I guess there is only one first for everything, so I will have to make the most of it and remember it fondly so that I can look back on it later and (force a) smile. Actually, I thought it went really well. I was asked to step in for a last minute cancellation, and that played really well into my need to be the hero. Ain't ego grand?

I'm looking forward to next week. I have a lot to do at work, I'm looking forward to my regular meetings, and I'll get to spend some quality time with my girlfriend. Sometime I'll have to dedicate a post to her, she is awesome.

I think I'm gonna add a Recommended Reading library page to my blog and also something fun I'll call "Saying Central". This will be repository for all the 12-step sayings flying around out there. I think it'll be funny to see a big long list of them all. Please contribute, I want this to be a group effort.

Crap, gotta go. The 5-year-old has 11 Hot WheelsTM and the 8-year-old only has eight, and THE WORLD IS SO(!) NOT FAIR!!!!!!!

Rambling

I don't know what to write about today. My girlfriend is gone until Wednesday night, and I miss her. It's raining so that is no fun. I stayed up late watching The Silence of the Lambs, so now I've got Anthony Hopkins' spooky voice saying "Good evening, Clarice" (listen, if you dare) echoing in my head.

I moved most of the stuff out of my apartment this weekend in prep for moving to Livermore to begin my 90-day residential program. Now I am living in a mostly empty apartment. It's amazing how big it looks when there isn't any furniture cluttering up the place. My landlord informed me that even though my lease was up I still was required to provide a 30-day notice. What a bunch of crap. It's just like me to skip over the details ... anyone else like that?

-- a day later ---

Girlfriend still gone ... still lonely, but only one more day. :-/ Missed my meeting today because of work. Bummer. :-\ I'm about to watch the The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers for the umpteenth time. Is it a bad thing to obsessively watch the same movie over and over again? It is definitely a comfort and safety thing for me. I can fall asleep listening to the movie because I know it so well and can picture it easily. It used to be LOTR - The Fellowship of the Ring, but I've seen that so many times now, I feel like I have to watch the other two or they'll get jealous.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

BLOGGING TIP OF THE DAY:
If you type into your browser a lot, like when blogging (when you enter long, boring monologues that no one reads), you might as well spell things correctly. I am using an add-on for Internet Explorer called ieSpell. It's pretty cool, you can right-click in the text area and some additional choices appear, among them 'Check Spelling'. Its vary use full, Czech i tout. <--- yes, it passed :-)
Todd, alcoholic (1966-)

Recommended Reading

I have included a Recommended Reading section on the right side of the page. It is my intent to have a special place to collect lots of recommendations so that there is a "one stop shop" for the folks following this blog.

Until I set up that special place, please make a comment on this thread to share your recommendations!

An Important Note About Shopping With Amazon

Amazon has an affiliate program wherein the affiliate (that would be me in this case) gets a "cut" for referring a buyer. Any money made by this blog will be donated to AA, so you can feel good about buying through here. Please note that ANY purchase made after linking from an affiliate is associated with the affiliate, EVEN IF IT WASN'T THE ITEM THAT WAS FOLLOWED. This means that you could (and I recommend you do) go through this blog whenever you are going to buy something from Amazon. To do this, you would click on one of the links in the recommended reading section, and when you get to the Amazon screen, shop as you normally would. Be sure you DO NOT close the browser and open it up again (this breaks the connection to the blog and no money gets donated.)

Desperately Seeking Sleep

O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my sense in forgetfulness?
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

I can certainly identify with the King. I haven't been able to sleep for a couple of nights now and I am exhausted. Kent (my wise and insightful sponsor) told me once to remember the acronym HALT, which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These are all common risk factors or triggers for addicts. So what does that say if I am up sitting alone in my apartment at 3AM, pissed off that I don't have any ice cream? :-/

The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.
Wilson Mizner

LOL, so true, so true.

It's not like I am anxious or worried about anything major, these nagging little thoughts just keep flitting in and out of my head. Two nights ago it was this blog, and wanting it to be helpful, funny, insightful, attractive, and fun. Last night, even though I was exhausted, I kept imagining there were fleas in the bed (there weren't any, were there?), and once I start feeling those little feet walking around, it's all over.

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away.
Without thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
William Wordsworth, "To Sleep"

I do my best to avoid taking Ambien. Even though it's not addictive, I really like to avoid medicating whenever possible. I've got some hypnosis CDs that I may break out tonight ... I don't want to spend another night in front of the TV watching B movies like Reindeer Games.

What do you do to help you drift off?


Disclaimer: The quotes are from QuoteGarden. All profits from sales are donated to Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the Internet!

Welcome

Welcome to MySobrietyBlog, which is, surprisingly enough, a blog about my journey to sobriety. There are many purposes behind my creating this blog, but the most important reason it exists is to provide a forum for discussing the things that addicts face as we struggle day-to-day. I hope that the discussions we have here will be helpful to individuals, the recovery community, and the world at-large.

This blog IS NOT a place for me to exert control or let my ego take over. I will not control discussions or force my views and opinions on anyone. I am still young in my sobriety (nearing 7 months as I write this) and I am looking to learn from you out there. There is wisdom in the masses and this blog is here to tap into that resource. With that said, I will monitor the threads that are started here, and I will remove anything that is offensive, prejudiced, or that "outs" someone that wishes to remain anonymous.

I expect that this blog will evolve over time, and I hope that it grows to become important to someone other than me. Someday, I hope to move the material created here over to a separate web site that can offer additional tools to the addict that is struggling.

I'm glad you're here, keep comin' back.