"Yet"

Last night I went to Gattitown, a pizzeria with an entertainment playground.  One of my granddaughter's celebrated her 7th birthday and she was the center of attention as she blew out the birthday candles, opened her gifts and played so many of the games.
Today is my umbilical birthday.  I officially turn 58 years old.  Wow.  I never thought I'd live long enough to see me turn 58.  I don't dye my hair.  I truly marvel at each gray hair and every wrinkle.  I embrace the changes. Age is a privilege.  Not everybody gets to grow old.  I've buried many friends who didn't live long enough to become aged because they died so young.
I always hoped to grow old and become wise from my life's experiences.  There are some of us who just age and become old fools.  I feel grateful to know I have a choice on a daily basis on which one I get to be.  LOL

Not too long ago at a meeting there was an older woman who said she just couldn't really believe she was an  alcoholic.  Sure, once in a while she drank a little too much and her family was putting pressure on her to stop drinking but, really, she just didn't believe she had a problem with it, not like the rest of us.  My experience has been whenever I start thinking I'm "unique" and different from the rest I am headed for trouble because I am in denial.  That's how I know.  The thought that I could never be like that alcoholic, drug addict, pill head, controlling, domineering, compulsive, etc. is a red flag, a signal I am headed for danger.

What I need to remember is "Yet".  I haven't done that "yet".  I haven't reached that kind of bottom "yet".  I've heard addiction described as an elevator we enter on the top floor then as the addiction plays out we go down, down, down.  Hitting a bottom on the 10th floor, we get off.  We get back on.  Going down down, down.  At the very bottom is institutionalization or death.  We end up in hospitals, jails, prisons, insane asylums or in a casket.  

I stopped a thousand times but I couldn't stay stopped.  "When I stopped I never knew when I was going to start, and when I started I never knew when I was going to stop".  Each relapse dug deeper and deeper, taking me down more and more.  Until I came to the 12 Steps program I lived in hell and was on a one-way ticket to more and more of the same until the bitter end.

The 12 Steps save my life EVERY DAY.  I am so grateful for the multiple blessings my Higher Power showers me with every day.  I may not get everything I want but I do get everything I need.  And it does get better compared to when I first entered the program.  In OA there is a saying, "Food never really made me happy but it made me think I was going to BE happy in about 15 minutes."  I substituted people, places and things where what I really needed was my Higher Power.  As a result of working the Steps, I am connected and stay connected.  One day at a time.  It does get better....happy, joyous and free...as we trudge on the Road to Happy Destiny.