Last night and today were and are bitter sweet for me.  Last night I decided to stay close to home (not 2 1/2 hours away) instead of going with my husband and oldest to settle my oldest into his new dorm.  My son, SC, was awarded the RA position, giving him free room & board, a paycheck, a new and huge room with air and his own bathroom.  My husband was extremely impressed with our son's new digs.  My son told my husband that he told one of his advisors about how he lucked out getting this awesome room, and the advisor said that he picked our son to get that room.  Wasn't that nice?  Said he told my son that he was impressed with him.  Nice to hear nice things for a change.  That's the sweet part........... I decided to stay put because of our youngest roaming around town doing who knows what.  Although I did end up playing soccer last night, a 15 minute drive, and going out after the game -- before our youngest's curfew, he (T-Man) didn't end up coming home until after 2:45 AM!!!!  The house rule curfew is a midnight, city curfew 1 AM.  Of course he didn't come home even at the legal curfew time..... So that's the bitter part. Early this morning we (some high school students and I) sat up in front of one of our local town coffee shops with our table, brochures, and collection jar for 3 hours...collecting funds for the Walk I got the high school involved in.  The Walk is to raise awareness and money for suicide prevention and education that this particular organization provides to area high schools.  We have been getting a great response to this cause, too.  So far our school (and this is the first time we're involved in this) is ranked # one for fund-raising!  My personal page on the website ranks me at #one, too.  The few hours we were there we did extremely well!  I am in awe of the generous people!  So we have two sweet and one bitter.  Oh........and last night at soccer!  I played very well, our team won, and we had fun!  So that makes it three sweet and only one bitter.  Although the bitter is one BIG bitter.....I am trying more than ever to make a conscience effort to not focus so much on the bitter.  It's a bitter pill to swallow, so to speak, but attending the Al Anon meeting the other night taught me that the only thing one can do in a situation such as the one I'm in (my son abusing drugs and alcohol) is to focus on one's' self.  I need to keep healthy physically and emotionally in order to "not lose it" and so that I can take care of my son better.  I guess I did get something out of the meeting.  I was not impressed with the format but the group kept stressing that "newcomers" need to be open minded and attend, at least, six meetings to give it a chance.  So I will do that.....