The difference between a drink and a pill.

Alcohol brought me into the recovery world nearly 20 years ago. I am a bing'ish drinker. I didn't drink every day and if there was less than a 12 pack I wouldn't even bother.

Now the reason I say that is because during the past 2 weeks I have been made keenly aware that I am way more a real live addict than I ever was an alcoholic. I would never want to drink a single beer but I would take a pill in a heartbeat.

I would go through many steps to avoid taking all the pills in a new script in one day but most of the time it happened anyway.

I've always thought, truthfully that N/A was less old white men in button downs than AA and much cooler. But I never felt comfortable there because I had not done my own independent research project of becoming a junkie.

It is so great to be around people like me who have no control over the outcome once the first pill is swallowed. The N/A book says addiction is insidious, AA says alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful.

It's both odd and nice to be started a recovery program where I haven't heard it all before. N/A is a whole new beast.

NO PILLS. That is my new rally cry and it amuses me. When you are lucky enough to get to the space where you can monitor what you thoughts are saying with them running the show, it boggle the brain just how much errant orders are issued to take a pill. I was completely fine yesterday and I had a thought, "wouldn't it be good to mellow out with a downer and nap a while".

I'm thankful I had enough experience to make it back but not so much experience that I crossed it off the list because it hadn't worked yet. Just right. Today I am just right. Just right now.

purpose

I doubt very much a flower wonders what its purpose it, or my dog, or the tree in my yard.  Because humans think they are so much higher up than all the other things on earth , we tweak our egos by thinking that we have a "real" purpose for being here. As if being here and human, and breathing isn't enough on its own. Being here is the cake and all the purposes we think we have are merely icing. The cake, is the cake and being here is our purpose. We have so many choices when it comes to our expression of life in our own humanity. I hear people talking about chasing a single dream. Life is long and we will all have a multitude of dreams. Our purpose is to live a dream filled life. "Keep your feet on the group and your head in the clouds."

I think we all pray for a purpose at times just to make sure we aren't total idiots going after the wrong thing, as if they were such a thing.

Be a better human.

Starting again and I have some stories to tell.

When I was sober for a few years, I started having full blown panic attacks. I didn't know what was happening to me and 4 or 5 times I went to the E/R after I had washed the dished and hidden the porn stash. The first few times their I was assured I wasn't having a heart attack, just anxiety. The treatment for me was that I was given a small blue pill. (not viagra). The doctor doing his job, inadvertantly  introduced me to the drug that would cause me so many problems for the next  9 years. ' As I try to figure out how I got here from there and lived to tell is what I plan on focusing on for the next few days.

I can say, I am clean and sober and really quite happy. The dividing line from now and 2 weeks ago is the new title for my future biography. NO PILLS!  Really that is no pills that are any fun anyway. One really is to many and a thousand really isn't enough.

So, I'm a pill loving alcoholic with bipolar disorder, major depression and an anxiety disorder. I love the fact that sentence alone qualifies me to speak at least 11 different kinds of recovery groups. lol I'm not in the writing mood at the moment but I wanted to let the blog know I was back. It can quit leaving those nasty messages on my voicemail now. lol.