Life…it’s what we make it

It’s the last day of the month of May, and I still haven’t posted a blog. My goal is at least one per month. It doesn’t sound like much, and it really isn’t, because once I get going, my fingers fly. Particularly when I’m on the bandwagon about something like I was when I quit Facebook for more than a year and felt all righteous. 

But Life happens and we have been adjusting to our new-normal, taking each day one day at a time. The month flew by faster than usual, but maybe it just seems that way because I’m getting older. It’s kind of funny that this last minute essay is exactly how I approached school assignments as a kid: waiting until the last minute to do it, no matter how much lead time was given. 

In spite of being a procrastinator, I’m both goal oriented and stubborn, so here I am, writing feverishly. I have about two and a half hours before I meet with a sponsee (recovery-talk for “person I’m working with”) and then it’s the weekly women-in-recovery meeting, followed by going to a funeral home to pay last respects to an acquaintance who died last week much too soon. She was only 50. 

She and I shared the same disease and she tried time and time again to stop drinking. I went to her house once when she begged for some women in the program to come over and help her. She cried and said she wanted to get sober, but I don’t think she really wanted to do what was necessary to get there. Talking to her was futile. Multiple hospital/rehab stays were of no use. 

She is the sixth person I’ve known from the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous to die in the last eleven months. Only two were known to be sober when they died. I wonder if one-in-three people who want to recover and succeed in doing so is about average, or if two people have to die in order for one to live.

The message couldn’t be clearer: Just don’t take the first drink! Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying that serves as a warning against taking that first one–which can lead to the second, and the third: “It’s the engine, not the caboose, that kills you.” I have learned what just one drink will do. I have a choice when it comes to taking that first drink. 

One of my sponsors told me that I can do anything I want, as long as I’m willing to pay the price, but I really don’t want to pay that price anymore. I must be on guard if I want to remain happy, joyous, and free. My life’s never been better. 

It’s taken awhile to learn how to live one day at a time, to become disciplined in applying the Steps to my life, and to practice daily gratitude. I reap the benefits every day, though! This is not to say that life is grand. It definitely is not! In fact, what’s happening in my world currently is the third time in a year that both faith and sobriety have been put to the test. But somehow through each situation I’ve experienced a peace and serenity that I would not have experienced if not for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t have to understand why certain things in life happen. I don’t have to like what happens.  I just have to accept that everything will eventually be alright, and that all of this is working towards the accomplishment of God’s will.

The artist, Grandma Moses, said that “Life is what we make it. Always has been. Always will be.” So do what you have to do to MAKE it a good one! It’s your choice.


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