Courage

It takes a lot of courage to get sober and stay sober.  The thing about alcohol is it takes away our courage and we become spineless over the years.  That is where support groups such as AA can really help. 

Becoming sober is one of the hardest things you'll ever do.  The only thing harder is dying a drunk! 

Getting hitched

I did not get married until I was nearly forty.  When I look back on it I guess I was married to the bottle at the age of thirteen.  It was a catastrophic marriage that lasted nearly twenty-two years!

Denial

Denial is the calling card of Satan.

Something in common

My very first drunk and last drunk had something in common.  They both brought me to my knees!!

Thrilling

My constant drinking was as thrilling as being stranded on a busy highway.

Power struggle

My pain and remorse where no match for my desire to drink, drink, drink!!!

How it came to be

In the beginning I drank because I had nothing to do.  After that I drank because it was all that I knew how to do.

Overwhelming desire

If I wasn't drinking I was thinking about drinking.  I was totally consumed by what I loved to consume the most! 

Dead drunk...

Dead drunk is where I would be today had I not invited God into my life sixteen years ago!

Just trust

If you want to find permanent sobriety JUST TRUST GOD from your knees!!!  All the doctors, psychologists, priests or medication in the world did not do me a bit of good until I decided to just trust God!

Alcohol got the best of me

During the twenty-two years that I drank alcohol certainly got the best of me.  My money, my time, my talent, my employment, my hope, my dreams, my health, my peace, my relationships, my clothing, my shelter, my friends, my family, my car, my drivers license, my credit rating, my self-respect, my education, my military career, my waistline, my sex drive, my teeth and most of all my relationship with God!

What has alcohol taken from you?

Forget about it

There is something about ourselves that we choose to forget.  We turn our back on a painful experience and alcohol is the cement that buries it forever.  Alcohol then keeps us in a state of mind where the possible seems impossible.  Where hope takes a back seat to doubt and misery.  Our level of normalcy takes a nosedive and we are forever limited to momentary joy and artificial bliss.  Life as it was intended to be cannot exist.

This is what becomes of us when we refuse to look at ourselves honestly.  This is what becomes of us when we allow alcohol to be our master.

Stop yelling at me!

A drunk cried out to me the other day.  "Stop yelling at me, you don't know what I am going through!"

The way I see it is he does not know what I am going through.  It's called sobriety!!

Getting ahead

You will never get ahead if you are always trying to get even!

Darkness

It is what I learn about myself in the darkness that I shout out to you in the light!  It is the darkness that is my defining moment!

Drunk

First a tear,
then a drink.
Laughter rules the night.
For a spell all is well.
Right becomes terribly wrong.
Self-destruction becomes the norm.
Remorse is a state of mind.
Nights turn into years.
Hope retreats
and doom is a constant shadow.
Drinking dominates both day and night.
Peace and joy do not exist
and denial is now in charge.
Recovery is the only road out of hell.

Addiction allows no conscience

An iron fist flows from the bottle.
A cry of hunger is illuminated from the sun.
A shadow of doubt comes from a promise.
Words so bold that shame ceases to exist.
Cry after the anger subsides.
Alcohol has taken what you have not.
Rob from the rich for you are the poor.
In your mind a king exists within.
A mother's deep love for her son.
Society despises a man who adores himself.
His disease and burden have become his riches.
No wealth has he who knows no God.

A poem

I scorch under the heat of doom.
No way out but through Him.
Life is distant, death is near.
I laugh and turn up the heat.
The bottle belongs to me and I to it.
Tears know my face all to well.
Another day comes and goes and with it remorse.
Shame follows the rising of the sun.
My life, my love.
I long to drink.  I long to drink.   
 

UGLY!!

Make no mistake about it recovery is down right UGLY!!  The ugliest period of my life was when I was getting sober.  It was even uglier than when I was drinking!!  It was however a very necessary process.  I had to develop several coping skills that would eventually rescue me from the call of the bottle.

A well worked recovery, no matter how ugly is vital if we are to enjoy long permanent sobriety.

Where I used to be

The bottle has caught up with me, my bottom has not.  In between lies painful self-destruction!

Why

I drink because I can.  I drink because I cannot stop.  I drink because it is all I know. 

It's all an act

Let's stop acting like everything is alright because it's NOT!!  The farthest thing from the truth is an alcoholic with a drink I his hand. 

Burden

Our burden is alcohol.  It keeps us from being all that we can be.  It takes away our ability to dream.  It leads us down a narrow painful road of self-destruction and lack.  Alcohol is most definitely our burden. 

I lived with this burden for over two decades.  I got down on my knees one day and asked God to take away my pain!  He took away my desire to drink.  My burden was alcohol.  I was allowing it to slowly kill me.  I was worthless to myself and others.  Today my self and social worth is much higher.

I owe it all to the absence of alcohol from my life!

Mornings remorse

The morning sun erupts.
My spirit sags.
My soul is without compass.
Alcohol my guide leaves me to die.
In a field no longer full of promise.
On the side of the road without hope.
Beaten beyond recognition.
I now see beyond me.
I see all that I leave.
I leave shame and pain.
To those who loved me most.
I loved back with nothing.
So blind was I to see a reflection of me.
Morning erupts and shatters the night.
and not far behind the pieces of a life dissolve into a lost day. 

Let's do it together

Hope to see many of you in the coming year!  I will be attending and speaking at many conferences dealing with alcoholism, recovery and sobriety.  Let's do it together!  Sobriety...the new must have!! 

Remorse

A morning of agonizing remorse seemed to have set me straight.  I cried and asked myself why?  I vowed to never do it that way again.  This time I meant business!  Somehow as the night moved upon me I found myself powerless and looking to rock.  Within hours alcohol was flowing and once again running the show.  Remorse had little if any power over the mighty intoxicant called alcohol!

Moments

Some of the most precious moments in my life are a result of permanent sobriety.  Simple, precious, heart warming, memorable and sober.  This is a huge chunk of my life the past sixteen years.

During the days of drink & drunk I could not manufacture the joy that now greets me with daily regularity.

Motivation

Sick and tired is sometimes the greatest motivator of all!

6X9

I was fortunate enough to put the bottle down in time.  I was sober for nearly six years when my dad passed.  I held his hand bedside, in the hospital as the moments to his life came to an end.  He looked directly into my eyes those final moments.  He had a look of peace and serenity.  He smiled at me and I knew he was showing me his approval.  I was grateful that he was able to see me put the bottle down and do something with my life.  His passing was not as painful as it would have been if I was still out there drinking up a storm.

The sad part is that my younger brother was still out there.  He was drinking and drugging to the point where it got him sent to prison.  He had to learn of my fathers death from inside of his 6X9 prison cell.  If only he had thought ahead.

How far ahead you ask?  About five minutes!  In the next five minutes all you need to do is get down on your knees and ask God to come into your life and remove the desire to drink!  That simple decision to go to God with your illness should take you to a place far away from the torture of daily alcoholic bliss. 

That place is called sobriety!    

Holiday weekend

The holiday weekend is upon us.  For me everyday was a holiday when I drank.  And when I didn't drink, days became hell!  After years of drinking, I knew no other way to function.  Drinking was equal to breathing and drinking was suffocating me to death!  My last gasp came in the form of a prayer. 

Now my holidays are filled with family, joy and peace.  I eat, love, laugh and sleep.  And when I wake up, I know where I have been and I ask God, to show me where to go.  I love my life as it now is and wonder, how, I ever survived what once was. 

My newest book

My newest book is entitled 'The Killer Within Me" is underway and will be available for purchase by the holidays!