Giveaway!

***Congratulations to Jenine of Snarkyville on winning the Gratitude Bracelet by Ellie! Thank you everyone who participated.***


There are many people who have helped me to stay sober over the last year. Many of these people I have never even met 'in real life', yet I consider them friends none-the-less. One of these fantastic women is Ellie from One Crafty Mother. I can't remember how I found Ellie's blog, but once I did I was hooked. Her stories of addiction and recovery are so shockingly similar to mine. It was through her posts and those of other mommy bloggers like her that I found out that I am not alone. I am not the only suburban, middle class, married, 'perfect' mom with this disease. In reading about her past, I was able to forgive myself for mine. In reading about her present, I am able to find the grace and strength to continue in my sobriety journey. I am so grateful for the gifts she has given me with her words, and now I have a chance to share that gift with you. I am hosting a giveaway of this beautiful bracelet made by Ellie.



The contest will run until October, 15th, when I will pick a winner using random.org. There are several ways to enter:

1) Leave a comment with your email address below to let me know you'd like to be entered into the contest (use ________AT_________DOT com to fool the spam bots); or email me at drunkendamage AT gmail DOT com if you prefer.

2) Follow me using Google Friend Connect in the upper right hand corner of my blog, then leave a comment to let me know that you did so.

3) Follow Ellie at One Crafty Mother then leave a comment here to let me know that you did so.

4) Follow Ellie on Twitter; @onecraftyellie then leave me a comment to let me know you did so.

5) Like Ellie's Facebook page One Crafty Mother and leave me a comment that you did.

6) Go to the shop Shining Stones and leave a separate comment for every piece you like, with the name of the piece or a link back to it in the shop.

For every comment you leave you get another entry into the contest, just make sure you don't nest comments or they won't get counted. In addition, you can get a discount on any piece in Ellie's shop for the duration of the contest. To take advantage of the 15% discount, go to Ellie's shop here: www.shiningstones.etsy.com and select your item(s). At checkout, click on "other" for method of payment, and put the following promotional code in the message to seller: GIVEAWAY15. You will get a message saying "contact seller to arrange payment", but Ellie will contact you to set up a direct bill (at the discounted rate) via paypal, check or money order.

I'll announce the winner on October 15th. Good luck!

Just One

Life has been high maintenance lately. We've had a long-term guest, done lots of traveling, and been gearing up for back to school and the High Holidays for about a month now. There are layoffs happening at my workplace (I think I'm safe, for now) and my relationship with my husband has been strained, to say the least. I'm frazzled and not taking good care of myself, my health, or my sobriety.

This past weekend the family plus guest were on a mini-vacation to a big city that we've never been to before. It was beautiful and all the children had a wonderful time and so did I, kind-of. But it was stressful. Traveling 5 hours with 5 people in a small car, spending a fortune in the city on sight-seeing, navigating busy streets packed with people and cars and no parking to be found would be enough to stress anybody out! Then there was my husband, he spent the majority of our one full day there being distant and pissy. He wouldn't talk to me and he radiated anger and frustration all day. Clearly he was trying not to say anything to upset me or ruin our trip, but the negativity pouring out of him was enough to make what could have been a magical day mediocre, and that was enough to get my resentment boiling!

At the end of the day the 5 of us made our way back to the neighboring suburb where our hotel was. After a short rest for mom (I literally fell on the bed and passed out for 30 minutes) we walked across the street to a recommended restaurant. As we sat and waited on our food and my husband sipped his beer I decided to order myself a non-alcoholic beer or virgin cocktail. I don't drink them often, but on occasion I enjoy one and this evening I needed to treat myself a little. As I glanced over the drink menu, looking for something without alcohol my eyes fell to the wine card and that devil of a thought popped into my head, "I could have just one glass of wine. After all, I've been sober one year now, what harm could one glass of wine, just this one time do?" I could taste a nice glass of Merlot, sliding down my throat, warming my stomach and brain. It seemed so harmless, one single glass on one night out far from home. I entertained the thought only for a moment or two before ordering a non-alcoholic beer, but it seemed like so much longer. Then I thought through the drink to it's consequences: I'd have to start my sobriety count over again, throwing away one whole year. I'd have to explain myself to my sponsor and my AA family. I'd have to deal with my husband's disapproval. Worst of all, I'd be putting myself right back where I was a little over a year ago, with wine running my life. Because it never is just one.

Loss & Faith

Last night I attended a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat service at my synagogue. It was led by a group of teens and they were amazing. I've never see that many teenagers smiling at once! They were lit up with joy in praise. It was truly beautiful. I kept thinking one word: Home. For the first time in my life, with this congration I have found a place of loving kindness, acceptance and joy.

This morning, I learned of the death of a woman in my home group to cancer. A woman I didn't know well, but who always inspired me with her light, love, and hope. Her husband, who is also in the program, attended the meeting despite having just said good-bye to his wife hours before. As he put it, 'At a time like this you want to be with family, and this is my family. She would have wanted me to come.' I thought of my own loved ones. Would I be at a meeting on the day of their loss? I like to think I would. When I first got sober, I had an out: I thought that if I ever lost either of my children that would be my excuse to drink myself to death. Later, I came to understand that to drink again over their death would be to dishonor their memory. They would not want me to give up my life and my sobriety because of them.


At my table this morning the topic was faith. People talked about how their Higher Power saved their lives, how He( or She, or It) kept them safe through their drinking. Personally, I can't believe that God has saved me. To summarize something that Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winning laureate and Holocaust survivor has said; I can't believe that God save me, because to believe that would be to hold my life as more worth of saving than the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. My life is no more worthy than theirs or any others.

They also talked about the line from Acceptance: "Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake", and how having faith that things happen for a reason carries them through. Again, I can't believe that God wants everything that happens to happen. To reconcile this with the loving God that I do believe in I turn to free will. God did not kill those 6 million Jews, Nazi's did. Nazi's - humans - who chose very, very wrong. I think God mourned their choices, the loss of their souls to such depravity and evil just as he mourned the massacre of the Jewish people.

So where am I going with all this? The loss of any life is a terrible thing. It can drag us down, or it can inspire us to lift ourselves up. This morning, I mourned along with a man honoring his wife and her life in the best way he could. Last night I praised God with joy along with a people who survived one of the most atrocious acts of mankind in history. In both places, I found joy, gratitude, and love. Perhaps it is because we have seen the darkest of the dark that recovering alcoholics and Jews are capable of such great light. Perhaps it is because we have faith. Whatever the reason, I am so grateful to have all of these people in my life.

How'd you do it?

August 13th was my one year sobriety birthday. After I received my token at my favorite meeting, surrounded by friends and 'family' and led the table discussion, I was asked the usual question, 'How'd you do it?' My answer was something like this.


I believe I was an alcoholic/addict from the moment I took my first drink/toke. Even though my friends started 'partying' years before I did, I was the one who always pushed for more. Every new drug we tried I was the one wanting to do it again (and again, and again). Within a year of smoking my first joint, I had tried at least 7 other types of drugs. By my senior year I was a meth head. I weighed about 90 lbs, never slept, never ate, and was a major bitch who liked to freak out on my friends. That my parents never noticed any of this still baffles me. Although they must have suspected something, because after high school they shipped me off halfway across the country to college to get me away from my friends. It got me off the meth (thank God) but it introduced me to a new love; alcohol.

College was for drinking and I drank hard. At first it was just a way of having fun, then at a frat party my freshman year, while drunk, I was raped. Probably that experience would cause anyone who wasn't an alcoholic to never drink again, but for me it was an excuse to spend the next two years completely plastered. Not only did I drink and smoke 24/7, but I developed a lot of other habits to hurt myself with. I felt I didn't deserve to be treated well. I felt like a piece of garbage, and I let everyone around me treat me as such.

My last two years of college I did a little better. I met a great guy, I got involved in my campus Women's group. I had a few healthy behaviors to balance out the unhealthy ones, but I still drank. In secret often, to hide it from that great guy, and not as much as before, but it was still my love. When I was sad, angry, depressed, annoyed, tired, happy, celebrating, bored, I drank.

After college I ran away to another country. I was looking for a new life, an adventure, a new me really. Instead I found the lowest point of my life. For 2.5 years solid I drank to excesses I'd never seen before. I put myself into situations time and again where I really should have died. I think now that maybe I did want to die, maybe that's part of why I did the stupid things I did. Still, the things I did during this time of my life shame me to the core. That shame was all I knew for a very long time. It contaminated all my feelings, all my thoughts and all my actions. And it kept me drinking.

At the end of this period I found myself pregnant. I quit smoking, and I reduced my alcohol intake, but I still had a glass of wine a day. Hey, I was in Europe, a glass of wine was no big deal! Even when pregnant. Oh, the lies we tell ourselves. Once my baby was born (healthy, thank God) my drinking escalated again. I spent the next 8 years (and second pregnancy) cycling through binge drinking and daily drinking. But no matter how much I drank, the shame was always with me. I felt like such a failure as a mother. I was so miserable in my life. I saw darkness and despair all around me all the time, and the only way I could be pleasant, the only way I could laugh or play with my children, was to have a buzz on. But I knew it was all a facade.

As time went on I became active in my children's lives and schools. I led Girl Scouts, I went to PTA meetings, I did fundraisers and taught Sunday school and had a million play dates. And I hated myself. I did everything wrong, I could never, ever achieve to the level that I thought I needed to. I was never smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough, strong enough, funny enough, kind enough. I was a failure not only as a mom but as a wife, daughter, granddaughter, friend, teacher, employee, volunteer. To forget about all my failures I drank. And yet I hated that I drank. I have no idea how many times I woke up in the night, feeling sick, hating myself for having drank so much the night before, and telling myself 'never again'. At least three times a week, usually more, for 10+ years? That's over 1500 nights, over 1500 promises broken. Far over I'm sure. I knew I was an alcoholic, but I didn't want to admit it. My grandfather was an alcoholic, and he was an abusive child rapist. I didn't want to have anything in common with him. Besides, if I was an alcoholic I'd have to quit drinking forever and I definitely didn't want that!

Then a little over a year ago I succeeded in making a complete idiot of myself in front of my husband, my children, my best friend and her family after drinking 1.5 bottles of wine on a camping trip. The next morning I finally said out loud that I had a problem. I told my husband that as soon as I took even one small sip of alcohol I lost all control. It didn't matter what my intentions were before that sip, they all flew out the window and all I knew was a giant craving for more, more, more! I agreed that morning to try AA when we got home. But when we got home I kept drinking. A few weeks later my husband brought it up again, and with a few glasses of liquid courage I called the hotline. I went to my first meeting the next night, and my life changed.

At the first meeting I sat with a bunch of men and 1 woman. As the men told their stories of jail, DUIs, lost wives and children I thought 'I'm not that bad'. I said so. I talked about how I wanted to drink like a normal person, that's all. Oh yeah, and be perfect. And then the other woman spoke about how she wasn't that bad either. She never got into trouble. Yet she was a whole lot worse, because she was a mom, because her drinking was ruining her children's lives by taking her away from them, nearly permanently. That night she gave me a poem about loving myself, and she gave me a Big Book. That night she saved my life.

I'd like to say I never had another drink after that night, but it's not true. The next night, as I sat and read the Big Book, seeing myself in every page, I drank my last glass of wine. My husband drank with me, telling me how I just needed to learn to drink responsibly, that I didn't have to live without alcohol forever. I knew he was wrong.

The next days, weeks and months were some of the hardest in my life, yet looking back on them they seem to be some of the easiest, because there are no bad memories, no shame or guilt associated with them. I had awful, horrible cravings. I hung on with my fingernails most days. I ate a TON of ice cream, and I read a lot. I went to lots of meetings, and I read lots of fabulous blogs like Ellie's One Crafty Mother and Stephanie's Baby on Bored. I joined the Booze Free Brigade and learned about the thousands, probably millions of other moms who are JUST LIKE ME who are also alcoholics and read some of their stories on Crying Out Now.

On the worst days, I walked through my house literally chanting, 'one foot in front of the other. Just take one step, do the next thing that needs to be done, you'll get through the day eventually.' I said the Serenity Prayer over and over again, and the Lord's Prayer too. I learned new prayers, I learned how to talk to God, and I learned how to turn my problems, fears and frustrations over to him. I learned that I don't have to be perfect, I just have to be human, and I don't have to care what other people think of me. And somehow, after 365 days of thinking, praying, and taking one step at a time I found myself receiving my 1 year token from a friend, surrounded by surrogate uncles and brothers, my adoptive grandpa, and two other moms at the start of their journey who I already care more about than I can say.

As my sponsor says, 'I am so thankful to be sober by the Grace of God and the 12 steps of AA'. That's how I did it, and how I continue to stay sober.

Yikes-a-roni!

Wow, it's been about 3 weeks since I last posted, yikes and sorry! I'm sad to say that my work blocked my access to any URL with from blogger, wordpress etc. I guess all those hours of reading other people's blogs and posting to mine caught up with me. I am sure there is a lesson in this... but let's save that for another day.

So I can't post from work anymore, and life outside of work has been ca-razy! My daughter's school has had events every day for the last week. My youngest just celebrated a birthday, which is a lot more work to get ready for than anyone would think, and the Girl Scout year is wrapping up with several events still to plan. So please forgive me that I haven't found time for you, my bloggy friends!

I wrote the below post at work about a week ago, thinking I would post it once I got home. And it's sat in my inbox ever since. Sorry. What was that thing about alcoholics and procrastination again? Anyway, it's still relevant, so better late than never, right?

Sorry I’ve been absent. The thing is, I haven’t really had anything to say. I try to think of blog topics but none of my ideas have any flesh or body to them. This blog is about drinking, and alcoholism, and recovery, and sobriety, but I haven’t been able to think of anything to say on those topics. Then it hit me just now, the reason I can’t think of anything to write about those topics is I haven’t been thinking about those topics at all. I haven’t been praying (much), haven’t been going to meetings, haven’t been reading or talking to my sponsor. Does anyone else here the robot’s voice from ‘Lost in Space’… “Danger, Will Robinson!”?

I know when I neglect my sobriety work I am putting my sobriety in danger. I am setting myself up for a ‘slip’. And it’s true; the lure of the bottle has been stronger lately. I’m not to the point where I think that it would be a good idea to take a drink, but I find myself thinking fondly about that nice glass of Merlot far more often than usual. I tell myself that since I am aware of all this that I’m okay, but am I really?

I have good enough reasons for neglecting my sobriety work. I am busy! (Duh, I am a mom, which is the definition of busy!) My youngest has a birthday coming up and I intend to make her some doll clothes, although drawing the designs is as far as I’ve gotten. I am making a costume for my eldest’s school wax museum (what did they wear post Civil War anyway?). My husband wants me to spend more time with him, something I continue to fail at. The Girl Scout year is wrapping up and I have field trips, meetings and ceremonies to organize. Work, you know the one that pays me, has been demanding more of my time. In a nutshell, I’m swamped. And the first thing to go is my meetings, my serenity, and my acceptance. I turn into this whirling dervish of stress and GET IT DONE!-ness. Frankly, I become something of a bitch.

So what to do? Well for one I think I need to chill the fuck out. Maybe buy my daughter a present instead of making them. Maybe drop some of those events I think I *should* do. Take a moment to breathe, to sit in silence, to say a prayer, to go to a meeting. Remember all the things I have that I am grateful for and accept all the things I’d rather not have, thank-you-very-much.

Remembering: Cinderella

Yesterday at my favorite meeting we were discussing the first step. I haven't sat at a first step table in a long time, and as people shared their drunk-a-logs I realized that I've been forgetting the damage I did while drinking, forgetting the awful ways I felt. I realized that I've been taking my sobriety for granted, and as long as I take it for granted I can't be secure in it. In other words, taking my sobriety for granted is the first step down that slippery slope to relapse, and I remember enough to know that I don't want to go there. So I decided that I need to consciously remember some of the worse incidents, so as not to repeat them. Ellie over at One Crafty Mother does this, and her stories are always a great inspiration to me. Now it's my turn.

"Cinderella dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella..." the girls are chanting this little ditty I've taught them in anticipation of our big movie night. Janet* is five and Janie* is two. My husband is gone for the evening, where I don't remember, and we are planning a girl's night. I'm excited, I'm making popcorn, a rare treat in our home, and I've purchased Cinderella 3 on DVD. We've been waiting for this movie to come out for months, maybe a year, and it's finally available. I of course am celebrating with some wine. There's a half bottle of red in the kitchen, more than enough for an evening alone with my two small children. I have a quick glass while making the popcorn, and then pour another and we settle in for the movie.

Somehow, the movie night is not going according to my expectations. Janie is bored, she wanders off to play. Or maybe she is nagging me to play with her, again, the memories are hazy. To settle my nerves I have another glass of wine. The bottle is empty now, and I want more. I don't think I have a problem. I am not a drunk. I just want one more glass. But if I open another bottle, my husband will know and despite justifying to myself that one more glass is no big deal there is clearly a part of myself that knows that it IS because I don't want him to know. So I get the idea to open another bottle and drink it down to the same line that the first bottle was at. I'll hide the first, empty bottle and my husband will think that I didn't have anything to drink at all. Brilliant! But something goes wrong. As the level in the bottle gets lower I start to feel sick. I'm stumbling around, slurring my words. I've completely forgotten about my kids, the movie, everything except the level in that bottle. I have to force the last glass down, I'm that drunk. I don't want any more, but I have to get the bottle to half full and it never, ever would occur to me to dump it out. That would be wasteful!

I don't remember the ending of the movie, or if we even watched the end. Somehow I manage to get my kids upstairs and into my bed. I don't know if we put on pajamas, or if we brushed teeth. We probably did, since I do remember trying to read a book to them, and if I was coherent enough to read a book I probably had them brush teeth, right? Except I wasn't coherent, I was slurring my words like mad. The pages were fading in and out, the print just a blur. I was fighting unconsciousness. The room was going black. I think it was only 8pm. I quit reading and told my kids mommy was 'sick.' Then I passed out.

I don't know if my kids went straight to sleep, or if they stayed awake, talking over their drunken, unconscious mother. I don't know if they felt afraid, all alone in that big house with no one to take care of them. I doubt they knew the danger they would have been in if something had happened, a fire, a burglary, a medical emergency.

I don't remember my husband coming home, but I can only imagine how it looked to him. His wife, sprawled on the bed, passed out, reeking of wine. His two innocent children beside her, sleeping (or perhaps not). Did he try to wake me, to talk to me? Did I slur my words? Did I try to justify myself? Or did he just shake his head and go, wondering why I keep doing this?

At some point I did wake, that point where I was sober enough to face the full horror of what I had done, and sick enough to want to die. Red wine was hard on my stomach (which is why I later switched to white) and I spent several hours not able to sleep from the waves of nausea and repeated runs to the bathroom to puke my guts out. What excuse did I give? Food poisoning? The flu? Did anyone ever believe that I was 'sick' that often? Somehow, I made it to morning. Somehow, I always seemed to finally sleep around 6am or so, and woke up feeling better albeit totally hungover. I looked around at the devastation I had caused, and swore to myself 'never again'. But it was just one of the million times I had said that, and there would be another million before I finally quit for good three years later.

An Exercise in Understanding Myself

Forgive me if this blog post isn't a clear story with a beginning and end. My sponsor has asked me to do a sort of self-help exercise, and this seems like as good a place to do it as any! Hopefully, whatever comes out of it will be helpful to more than just me.

A brief outline of the situation: I'm a Girl Scout leader. Cookie sales ended about a month ago. One mother decided not to pay the $840 she owes the troop for the cookies she sold. This, as you can imagine, has been an extremely upsetting situation. She claims that she only sold half the products, and that the money for the other half was stolen. However I have it on good authority that she sold everything and was living off the money. I can only conclude that she never intended to pay the troop. That she saw this golden opportunity to make some cash and took it. Now she is trying to shift the blame to me, by claiming that I am a bad leader, that I am teaching the girls inappropriate materials (because we did a couple of sessions on drug and alcohol awareness) etc. Intellectually I know that she is trying to justify her actions to herself and is most likely looking for an excuse to pull her daughter from our troop, so that she can justify not paying for the cookies. Emotionally, I am mad, frustrated, hurt, offended, and disgusted.

I called my sponsor to ask her how to deal with these emotions because they are getting the best of me. I thought AA would say that I need to find a way to forgive her so that I don't continue to hold this resentment. Well I can't see how to forgive this. I thought AA would tell me to look at my part in the situation, but I honestly can't see where I have done anything wrong in this case. I have remained professional, I have kept my opinions to myself, I have not gossiped, I have continued to treat the child, and as hard as it is for me, the mother, with respect and kindness.

Thankfully, my sponsor didn't tell me either of these things. She asked how I have dealt with the business side of things, the stolen money, and I was able to tell her that I have done everything in my power by turning it over to the authorities. So she said that since I've done all I can there, I can allow myself to let that part go. As for the emotional feelings of being under attack, she said I need to examine my feelings. Why am I hurt by this woman's words? Why, when several parents told me that they appreciated and enjoyed my program, do I focus on her criticism? Is there any validity to what she claims? I believe not. So why let it get under my skin?

I believe it all comes down to the fact that I am a people pleaser. I'm sure a lot of it stems from my childhood, when I was criticized constantly by my parents for never doing anything right. I feared the angry words, the punishments that came with doing anything that my parents didn't like (and this could be something as innocent as reading a book, my dad didn't believe in wasting time reading). I came to associate any kind of conflict or difference of opinion as a situation where I would be yelled at. So I stopped standing up for myself. I hid what I wanted to do and pretended that all was fine, all the time. I actually developed an ulcer from all this stress when I was in high school! High school! Not surprisingly, it went away when I went off to college. But I digress. In this situation, I feel those same old feelings of guilt, depression and stress when confronted with conflict. I want everyone to approve of and like everything I do, and I don't want to deal with any situation where disagreements are bound to occur. But keeping all this stuff in makes me feel like shit.

My sponsor says I need to validate my own actions. I bear no guilt today. I am not drinking. I am present for myself, my children, my husband, my employer and my Girl Scouts. I am a good leader and a good role model. Of course, there will still be people that don't like something I do or say, but that is their problem, not mine. I need to let it be their's. By allowing this woman to get to me I am giving her power over me and she does not deserve that. I can't feel bad about this situation anymore. It's not my fault.