There are many nice people outside the rooms

Last night I went to a fundraiser for a college I attended. It was so nice being with such amazing positive people who talked, for more than two hours, about the importance of education, how important it is to give back and how setting goals and getting a "hand up" changed their lives.

When the event was over (and I got all dolled up as the theme was vintage, wearing my mom's old mink stole), I went to a late night meeting where the topic was the Tenth Step.

You know what I struggle with the most, it seems? Being consistently nice. There are times when I get so frustrated by life on life's terms--bounced checks, people who don't act "right," always having a bit less money than I would like--that I can get pretty difficult and sometimes, downright hateful. That is what I struggle with today.

This weekend I'm doing a weekend intensive thing, sort of EST-like, I guess, for those of you old enough to remember EST. It's mostly program people and I'm hoping for some breakthrough, because I feel stuck.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Until then, as my sponsor used to say, "God is the answer, now what was your question?"

I'm back!

The reason I shut the blog down a year or so ago is no longer relevant so I am able to "come back out." I missed blogging and missed talking with you all, even if it was only in cyberspace (except Meg, whom I actually met).

My life is incredibly busy and fulfilling. I am crazier than an outhouse rat currently, perhaps because I'm coming up on an anniversary and am on Step 3. I want to get my 4th done by my birthday in December.

I hope you are all doing well. I haven't much profound to say except that the longer I stay clean, the more I realize I have a lot to be humble for.

My Romy is gone

I haven't posted in awhile. There is so much happening in my life, but the most difficult is that my beloved Romy went to be with Dallas and my parents. It has been several months and I still can't stop crying when I think of her.

She didn't suffer hardly at all. She was playing with Oz when her front leg broke, probably from bone cancer. She was brave right until the end. On three legs, she marched up the ramp into the truck.

It made me realize how she was the center of my life. There just wasn't much room for anything else.

Oz is doing well, although I think he misses her. He is even more affectionate now.

I hope you are all doing well. I'm hoping soon I can make the blog public again, but for now, I'll keep it private and hope you still check back from time to time.

Hugs and happiness.

Another few tragedies among winners

A gal I sponsored in Missouri woke up next to her husband, who was dead. He was 37. She is staying clean and walking through the pain. The day after he died, a young couple with about two years clean who called to tell me about her tragedy woke up to find their 17 year-old son dead in bed from an overdose. They are staying clean.

When I was coming back to Arizona to try to get my liver transplant, I met with my young sponsee before I left and told her that when "it gets hard, and it will get hard," she will have to walk through it. It has gotten hard for her and despite her initial response, which was to say "Screw this," she stayed clean and buried her husband and did the right thing to be there for her children. They need her.

Life is hard. We go through so many adversities. To those of us who, for so many years, chose to use rather than face life on life's terms, walking through the difficult times isn't easy.

There is no way around the pain; the only way around it is through it. I hope, no matter what life throws at me, I can continue, one day at a time, to stay clean and be present for both life's disasters and the joy.

It's raining hard in Arizona and I am glad. The way I feel matches the weather. I am tired of people throwing away the gift of recovery. Here is a shakedown of the past week.

Next week we will no doubt memorialize a man who threw away almost 18 years, a family who loved him, a wife who probably cannot support herself, a business, and the love of his friends in the Fellowship in search of a bag of heroin. He found it. He went on a one-man crime spree robbing banks and ended up in what can only be called a "suicide by cop."

There is my dear friend who has been around as long as me and has been in and out for years, always using her "mental illness" as the excuse to use. I don't judge her, but she breaks my heart and the hearts of those who love her. She is the funniest person I know. She called me the other day and left this message. "I'm done with NA; there's just nothing left for me." So I called her back and told her about our friend in the first example and said, "Yes, there is something left for you." Our literature tells us in every meeting only too clearly: "Jails, institutions and death." That is the grim, grim reality.

Then yesterday, my ex-husband calls straight out of an overdose and loaded. It's everyone's fault, as usual: his loveless marriage, women who hit on him because he's such a babe after 40 years of drug use, his hard work. Whatever the excuse, he always has one. What can I tell him that I haven't told him before?

This disease is breaking my heart. But it isn't exactly the disease, it's the casual discard of the lifeline by people who should know better that hurts so much.

I am tired of burying people; of losing people through their own cavalier, "I don't give a fuck, I'll show them" attitude.

Today we will go celebrate a woman's 25th birthday and I will be surrounded by the NA winners. Those who have gone through difficulties in their lives yet chosen to stay clean one day at a time. And it will feel healing.