And I stayed Sober (Requiem 22)

One of the most important things to happen to me in recovery was being thrown out of my house after 2 weeks of being sober. It reiterated to me a basic understanding that I had been forgetting: my problem was not alcohol. My problem was living life. I was and am ill equipped to deal with the day to day events in an ordinary life. Once I realized alcohol could alleviate the various pains (anger, heartache, disappointment, boredom etc...) associated with growing up and being an adult, I only resorted to actually dealing with them when I had no other choice. To put it another way: alcohol had allowed me not to have to grow up. I was emotionally immature. With no alcohol to deal with these pains, I was in desperate need of finding something to replace it.

Back at my grandma's I found myself. Right from the start I knew that I was going to have to stay sober. There was no other way. I focused on working and meetings. I was rarely home. Weekends came and I went to band practice and met with Kim. I was buying a lot of books and reading with my down time. I spoke to Katie pretty frequently, but a funny thing happened. After a couple of weeks, I was nervous that we might move back in together. Being out of the house seemed to take some of the stress out of my life. I was worried that moving back in would see that stress put back in place. After almost a month, Katie and I decided I would spend a night or two back at the house to see how things went. The first night was pretty tense. We were polite to each other and careful choosing our words. It was not unlike being on a first date. We were both waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. I kept going to meetings and pretty soon I had 60 days sober. Then 90 days. We were getting along better than we had in a year and things seemed to keep improving.

I started reading the book 'Alcoholics Anonymous' with Kim. Which is to say that Kim read the book to me and I listened. Every once in a while he would give me an assignment. One such assignment was to name the traits and qualities that I would choose in a God. I put some thought into it, but in classic alcoholic fashion forgot to write them down until 30 minutes before I was supposed to meet with Kim. I scrambled to list things like forgiving, loving, kind, father, brother, friend. Kim told me that my higher power was all of those things. Another time we kneeled and said a prayer; turning myself over to God. And I stayed sober.

Kim had lived in a few places since he had sobered up. When I had been sober about 60 days we took a trip to Atlanta to visit his friends there. Along with Kim and I were my friends JM, Tony, and Steve. We were all sponsees of Kim's. We visited the meetings he used to attend and met the people we had heard stories about. I sat across the table from two men at dinner one night. One man used to sponsor the other. He had given the other guy advice to give his wife some space. He had then used that space to have an affair with the wife. The woman was long gone from either of their lives and they were no longer sponsor/sponsee, but they remained friends in recovery! We had a good trip and I got to experience what meetings were like in Georgia.

A month after we got back from Atlanta, we had a mens' retreat at Kim's house. About 20 guys came over one Saturday from 8 in the morning to 8 at night to talk about recovery. The camaradarie I felt after that was unmatched. When I would run into one of those guys in a meeting during the next few weeks we would just look at each other and nod. We knew. And I stayed sober.

Katie and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary by going to Logan. I had lived there for a few months back in '99. Katie had gone to school there in '98. We had a great time. Our relationship was getting stronger and stronger. We were not arguing that much. When we did disagree, the disagreements weren't lasting as long and were nowhere near as intense. The old wounds were healing. We began to talk about kids again.

For the third time, my wrist began to swell again and I knew I was looking at surgery. I decided to go to a different doctor and took Katie with me to help me avoid pain pills. A few days before Christmas I went and had a 3rd surgery. They had given Katie the pain pills, although I did ask them to only give her a few. Something happened, though. When I got home after the surgery, I got very sick and couldn't hold anything down for a few days. It was 2 days before I could even think about my wrist. God was looking out for me. Those first two days are the worst as far as pain goes. I had survived those without pills. When my wrist ached during the next week, I took a pill or two and never experienced the craving that I usually did. New Years, 2008, came and found us playing poker at Kim's house. We had a good time, and I stayed sober. January found me picking up a 6 month chip. I was still meeting with Kim on Saturdays, working the steps. I was chairing meetings and helping set up other meetings. When I turned 28 in February, I thought a lot about addiction. By turning 28, I had outlived a lot of my musical heroes. Musical heroes who also happened to be addicts. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. All 27. There was a time in my life when I didn't think I'd live to be 20. Then 25. At 28, I was beginning to imagine a life that didn't evolve around alcohol and drugs. At my sponsors urging, I was praying daily and life was comfortable for me. Was it to last?