Hi Sara,

I haven't seen a post from you in several days now, hoping you are doing OK and just busy. Please check in when you have a minute. I (we) miss you!!

Take care,
Patty

I've been thinking the same thing! I'm just the "well, maybe she just needs a little break" type, (as I think we all do from time to time,) and I'm hoping that's what's going on ~ Or yes, busy ... that's even better. Anything new going on in the job front?
Hope you are OK Sweetie~ and getting to your meetings. Either way, No matter what is going on ~ please just drop us a quickie to check in. Patty is right, you are missed and loved by so many here.
Love,
El

You've been on my mind, too, Sara...why not drop us a quickie just to put our minds at ease...or, if necessary, lend a hand? Now what would Frida do in this situation, hmmm? I will honestly say that gives me pause for concern...

Touch base, we have "auditions" being held, and I'm slacking in getting over there! It's on the Twins thread about it being too quiet on the Eastern front, and we'd love to hear you chime in!

Caring and Worrying, but always loving you,

Dallas Alice

You guys! I love yall! Ive been "away" because Ive been going to two to three meetings a day,-- I have that privalige b/c Im unemployed right now. (Lets just say I went on a sabatical) sounds better hmmm?

I havent shared with yall that some great things have been happening to me lately. First, I want to say, I really love you guys and I know God put you all in my life for a reason, and me and your lives too. There are no mistakes.

I finally GOT this thing. The program! The "how it works" It has nothing to do with not taking drugs or drinking! Its about living life on life's terms, not the ones I secretly made up as I went along. It's about how to handle a bad day, a good day, and a nothing day. I feel released from the clutches of this disease. I feel relief. I feel joy. I feel like I know what everyone else said when they said " the obsession has been lifted " I no longer think about pills, I no longer want to take them. I know its not me doing this. You guys knew me before! A mack truck couldnt get me to stop taking pills. I did not wake up one day and say " okay Sara, you are in control-- just dont do drugs ! " No, didnt happen like that at all. I just started doing what the big book says to do...

[B]I start everyday by reading page 86 of the big book, and asking God if he can keep me sober just for today. I think I am helping others in meetings. I feel helpful again. And by the way. I know I went to a treatment ctr, but just in going to AA meetings it can be done.. I see it happening everyday. I do think treatment centers are great for people who need to detox AND cant go to meetings everyday on there own. But if you can... AA works for so many who have never gone to rehab. (Great guys, thanks for telling me that sooner!) just kidding, I made that fun trip to rehab. I choose to do it, it did show me how anyone from any walk of life can end up in a hospital or treatment center.

[B]DA, BF, Lisa, El, Twinlynn, Marilyn, Ggrl, Patty, ... my relationship on this board to you has been as deep and meaningful to me as a relationship I had with my bestfriend growing up-- you all are the sweetest bunch of women ! Ya know how we are always there 4 each other? Well the women in AA are the same kind of gals. I might not have every laid eyes on someone before and after the meeting.. WOW, I feel like Ive know em my entire life. It's just that kind of helping one another makes us bond. (you know Im always here for all of you)

This is one of my favorate parts in the big book:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed befor we are half way though. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter haw far down the xcale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose intrest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Out whole attitude and outlook upon life with change Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

I am finally starting to "do the next right thing" without even having to think about it anymore. I feel release. As I know in my heart I dont have the desire to take pills anymore.. I feel free.

You guys, as happy as I am and have been lately.. I have not forgotten my disease is progressing. It wants me back all the time. If I stop going to meetings, if I stop being around people and start isolating... my disease loves that! It wants me to "just take one pill" It tells me Im no good, it tells me Im depressed, it tells me the people in my life dont love me unconditionally.
I am very much aware of how cunning, baffling, and powerful it is and it wants me dead just like all the others who didnt make it.
I dont get cocky and say, "well, I went to 2 meetings yesterday so I dont think I need to go today"

Recovery is only what you do today! Not yesterday, last week, are how many years you have sober. It's what you do today in recovery.

El, Im worried about you, are you still in alot of pain from the dental work? Rebound pain bad too. Are you trying to taper or waiting for the dental work pain to subside? Please let me know how you are doing.... k?

Patty- Its funny, when Im in meetings, I will forget you could be in the same ones! I hope we will run into each other one day! How are you doing?

TODAY I PICKED UP MY 5 MONTH CHIP! Twin- doesnt it feel like it's been forever ago that I started talking to you and DA? I wonder how Chris is doing???? I would really LOVE to hear from her! :)

Its Saturday night live... here in good ole Houston Texas, I wish you all sweet dreams!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, ~~~~~

Sara

Wow! Reading your post made me grin from ear to ear. I love knowing you are in such a good place. You are such a good reminder for me not to slack on my meetings. I definitely want what you have!

Sara, I hope we run into each other soon. I will try the woman's meeting on Wed at P.O. again. I'll stick with it until I get comfortable. I still panic when called on. Brain freezes, I have nothing to say. But I'll stick with it until that gets better, I know it will.

Take care,
Patty

Sara - You should see the get-up I'm wearing, as I read your "Getting It" message! An ancient black and pink Ski Vail sweatshirt over a pastel pink and blue flannel nightie---which I just discovered has a rip down its seam!! I feel totally "underdressed" and way too slovenly to read such a spiritual post! LOLOL!! :-)

You sound so happy, sweetie. It's "intoxicating" just being with friends who can bring you "up" like that, isn't it?! As Barbra Streisand sang "People...people who need people..are the luckiest people in the world!!!" :-) And it sounds as if you found lots of lots of those "people" at your strong, supportive AA meetings!

I'm doing better now....with, actually, a noticeable decline in my low-grade depression the past week or so. (As if my brain chemistry is finally calming down.) The Sub has brought me back to the land of "normality"--a land I hadn't been back to for years!!! I accept that each day will be different--"the good, the bad and the ugly"--and that my emotions and feelings will go up and down throughout each day. And, that "up and down" has always been normal for me--I've always had shifting moods. "Shifting" meaning that, for no particular reason, at differing times of the day, I will feel better than at other times. That's just the way it's always been. But it is such a blessing now, knowing that these are my REAL emotions--NOT the pills!

I think that what keeps me off the pills is simply that, by the end, I felt so rotten ON the pills! If that had not been the case, it would have been a lot harder. And I can see how easy it is to lapse. But the reality of how I was living on those pills was that I felt AWFUL...not good. When science comes up with a natural way to bring on those lovely, euphoric endorphins, I'll be first in line! LOL!! But the artificiality of heading down the pill path was just doomed to failure...no matter how "good" I felt when I first began to take them. The most "sobering" thing for me has been that they just don't WORK! (I've always been so practical! LOL!) And I know now that I will never find "happiness" through them.

It's so great to hear you sounding so well and happy, Sara! :-) Yes, it does seem a lifetime since we met one another on these boards! Well-worth the addiction to find such special friends!!! LOL!

Love ya, Lynn xxx

Lynn,
Lol, lol, lol--(picturing you in a black sweatshirt with hotpink writing on it, "SKI VAIL !"), Gosh honey, that sounds so 80's ish with your jammies on underneth. I bet you look darlin!

Funny you mension how you remember how pills were no fun anymore at the end... just a nesasary thing for me-- if I did not want to feel like I was dying. It was anything BUT fun. Chasing that first high we all got at the beginning-- never being able to get there no matter how hard we tried. In some of the meetings I go to, almost every time in fact.. everyone has the same story...If they have been hurt enough for them`` they have a lurking notion to stop.
Personally I would not trade any of those bad things that have happened to me as a result of my drinking and drug use. Those things give me experience to explain to the newcomer who is reaching out for help. Once I have given them a quick journey in my past-- I can help them by letting them know there is help. And most importantly... hope.

I forgot to tell you I have a job interview in the morning! It is so strange how it happend.. I was at Starbucks at 8:00 am reading my big book and my 3 year old daugher was laying on my lap.. there were three guys with there lap tops having a meeting. I heard them talking the "Information Technology" lingo. (My career is in IT Staffing), so after the meeting being the BOLD person I am.. I said excuse me gentlemen, I could not help but overhear you are in the IT Staffing business.. they said yes, I explained I was laid off, one guy took my number, (FOUND OUT THE COMPANY HE WAS WITH WAS THE LARGEST COMPETITOR OF THE COMPANY THAT LAID ME OFF!!!)

He called me and asked me to e-mail my resume, I did immediately, he called the next day and said the director wants to speak to me about a position to staff an entire mega hospital in Houston! Im meeting him tommorrow. After a quick trip to Ann Taylor today to buy a new white suit-- the color is actually called "chalk" and some new shoes. Im so excited. I wasent even looking for a job it just happened at Starbucks of all things.

Lynn,,,, did I tell you I quit smoking too? I was only smoking every once in a while.. but with the obsession of pills being lifted.. so has cigerettes.

I found this in the Big Book, and I thought you.. or anyone who reads this will find it interesting...

A quote from Dr. William Silkworth

We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholices, buts its application presented difficulties beyond our conception. What with our ultra-modern standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge. Many of the stories are amazing. The unselfishness of these men as we have come to know them, the entire sabsence of profit motive, and their community spirit is indeed inspiring to one sho has labored ong and wearily in this alcohollic field. They believe in themselves, and still more in the power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death. We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action os alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomeon of craving is limited to this class and nerver occurs in the average (normal) temperate drinker. These allergice tpes can never safly uses alcohol in any form at all; and once having lost their self-confiendce, their reliance upon things human, their proms pile up o them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.

(When I read the big book, I change the word alcohol, to narcotics or pills.)

I love you Lynn, must start to study now....


HEY PATTY!

I dont go to the Wednesday Womens meeting at Post Oak...

Mon. - 12 Noon and 3:15 I go to Post Oak (Patty, I think you would like the 3:15 if you can make it! They are soooo down to earth) you dont have to share! The noon meeting they joke a lot. I used to not like it when I first got sober. All I wanted to hear is solution, I could not understand why they were laughing so much! How could they if we are talking about life or death? But now I laugh too. It's a meeting that makes me feel good for the entire day.
Tues - 12 Noon and 3:15 Post Oak
Wed - 12 Noon and 3:15 and 7:pm CA meeting at Fountainview and Westheimer, Its at the Lahacienda outreach center, I could not locate it in the meeting directory, but its online- Ive seen it there. Its a very good meeting. Lots of solution.
Thurs - 12 Noon and 3:15 Post Oak
Friday- same, post oak, noon and 3:15
And SATURDAY is the woman's meeting at 12:15. It is really great! These women are not competting, they are all trying to stay well, and help one another.
Houston is so big, but I hope to run into you one of these days. All the places I go I would suggest to anyone.

Love ya Patty! Love ya Lynn, good night and I wish me luck for my interview tomorrow.

Love,

Sara

Hey Sara
Congrats on 5 months and I wish you the very best in your interview tomorrow.........what is it about powers that be and.........mysterious ways I don't know sounds like you've got some good Karma coming around.
My best thoughts you deserve it
Marilyn

Thanks for remembering my 5 months! What is going on with you???????

Love,

Sara

Hey Sara.....Congrats on 5 months!!!!! Wow time flies, huh??? You are a perfect example of what happens when we "surrender". AA has helped you grow in such a positive way. I am so dam proud of you. have you ever went back and read your old posts???? What a change!!!!!!!
You are such an inspiration. I wish you luck with the job interview too. A white Anne Taylor suit....VERY CLASSY---- ;) What an asset you'd be to THAT company.
Well i just wanted to say "HI" and congrats. My prayers are with you for Monday. Please post soon and let me know how it goes. Have a great weekend, Sara!!!!!
love ya,
LISA

Hi Lisa! Ive been thinking ALOT about YOU! Gosh I F-E-E-L what you are going through. The little jabs and the feeling of walking on a landmine any second. What is going on today? I read your post yesterday about 1/2 of the clothes. The right thing to do will come to you, and you will heal ~~ whatever the outcome may be.

In answer to your question about me going back and reading the posts? Yes! I printed them out a long time ago and I took em with me to rehab. One time I was sitting on my bed at rehab and going thru withdrawls..just rocking back and forth, and feeling like I was going crazy and I pulled out a post from Lynn about a fed ex truck pulling up at rehab and a guy jumping out with a box of vicodin and soma's from the pharmacy for Sara! I giggled. It was so much needed at the time. I have all the print-outs in my desk at home and I love pulling them out just to see how far Ive come.

I have to surrender every morning when I wake up- then I ask God to put people in my life who I can help- and I ask him to keep me sober for the day. Ive been reading your replys to people on the board.. you are helping so many. God is obviously working through you!

Love ya lots,

Sara

P.S. Im really worried about Godessgirl, I want to send an I LOVE YOU to her through the boards and a prayer too.