on this day I drug myself to the front door of an AA hall for the noon meeting. I'd been in a blackout the night before and had DTs that I totally noticed for the first time. My hallucinations were so real it was hard to tell how many times I had hallucinated before and just thought nothing of it. I would not have thought anything of it this time except that my by friend asked me what I was talking about and doing and I remember thinking I was someplace different, I saw a street, vines growing on rocks outside the car where I was sitting. I heard music. I thought I was in the car parked outside the bar I'd been at earlier. Turns out we were in our driveway. When I got out of the car the world swirled around changing places till I realized I was home. I shrugged it off and forgot about it, going up stairs and passing out, to awaken so sick I felt like I could die. Alcohol, a hard drug, one of the hardest I've ever done. And I have shot cocaine and heroine.

I drove 40 minutes to get to that noon meeting. The door was locked. I kicked myself for leaving AA. Who did I think I was? What if everyone had my attitude and that is why the door was locked? It was over 100 out there on that sidewalk in front of the Fellowship Hall. A man walked up and then another newly sober man. We had our own little meeting right there that day. The first man had 3 years. He was recovering from a liver transplant. He drank again. The other newcomer didn't stay. But I got through that.

And what a long strange trip it has been. This period of sobriety has been one long example of the seriousness and fatality that alcoholism is. One day at a time and I owe my sobriety to first my HP, then to AA and NA, OA too. I have no regrets, not one hard day I regret that I stayed sober. I cannot say that about drinking/drugging. This IS a journey worth being on. It continues to be by Grace that I stay sober.