12 Years A-Sober

I just leapt (like the Lords in the song) through my 12th Sober Christmas. This week, God willing, I'll squeak through my 12th Sober New Years.

Not bad, considering I thought my life was over except for the dying part, 12 years ago.

That first sober Christmas was a scarey time. My friend Bev sent me an Advent package of little toys and goodies -- which meant the world to me. Every little thing in that package said "somebody cares" to me. This, at a time, when I didn't even care for myself. Bev and I have known each other since 1994 -- when we met on-line in CompuServe's Issues forum. She was a Section Leader and, later, a SysOp. I thought she was a nice lady.

She was. She is.

By the time my second sober Christmas came along, I was able to spend the day (mostly) with my family.

And now, I look forward to spending the day with them. They don't push any buttons. That's mostly because this family, which is not my family of origin, has no ideas where my buttons are -- they didn't install them.

This Christmas was the best yet. The former kids have all grown up, gotten married, and had kids. The grand-nieces and grand-nephews are at the perfect age (4-10) and still enthralled by the magic of Santa Claus.

Come to think of it, so am I. Santa brought me sobriety. Santa brought me Bev. Santa brought me hope. Santa brought me 11 years and 9 months of continuous sobriety. Santa brought me love.

It's good to be alive and to still believe in magic.

Cash & Prizes

I started to get sober 10 years ago, a week ago last Saturday. That's a lot of sober time. It also represents a period spent mending a lot of fences (and erecting a few new ones, too).

I got an e-mail this morning from a guy I've known since October of 1971. I think we probably liked each other a lot back then. I remember thinking, in those days, how nice he was and how I wished I could be a part of his inner circle of friends. But my disease took me elsewhere and even though we'd maintained a very loose contact with each other over the years, I never had that close friendship I would've liked to have had.

That all changed after I started getting sober. And that e-mail he sent me detailed, in a very short paragraph, how much I've come to mean to him in the last 10 years.

It made me so happy that I started to cry.

When I wrote back I tried to find the right words to let him know how grateful I am that by getting sober I've been able to finally get something I've wanted for years. To be his friend.

For the last several years he and his life partner, and another friend of ours, have vacationed together for a week or two just about every summer. My emailing friend and I tend to be early risers and I love spending a quiet hour or so with him every morning, sitting out on the screened porch, or on the deck, or somewhere overlooking the beach or water, just drinking coffee and yapping about nothing, something, everything.

The best gifts I've gotten in sobriety are the gifts of love and friendship. Anything else is just "stuff."

For an alkie like me, it takes a long time to come to appreciate the really important things in life. I'm grateful that I "got it" before it was too late.

Have a great weekend, everyone!