A Failing Success

This journey to sobriety is anything but uneventful. My husband and I love ufc and watching mixed Marshall arts fighting. I've never NEVER watched a fight without a joint and plenty of booze to knock me into a coma until next week. Seriously...thank goodness we record them because I wake up the next...er...afternoon, wondering who won the fights and re watching them again nursing my bottle of water and handful of aspirin. Sounds like a terrific time doesn't it?

Saturday was the big fight with my favorite heavy weight and I was ubber excited. Though gloriously exhausted from the two hour drive to Tulsa, the massive amount of knowledge received at the CR one day, and the 4 hour drive back...oh, why 4 hours? Because I'm blessed with internal navigation (scoff) and ended up driving up to good ol' Joplin, Missouri on the way back to Arkansas. That's time number 4 I've done that. If I hadn't been trying to stay down the right road spiritually, no one would have been able to stop me from swinging by Downstream casino to blow off steam with a cocktail and blow some money I didn't have to blow at the slots. But, instead I laughed, then cried as I got lost, stopped for gas in the middle of nowhere, (you'd think for this being my 4th time getting lost I'd remember my way back from the lost place without getting lost, wrong) and asked hillbilly santa...who was as nice as he was creepy, how to get home. He was precious in not making fun of my idiotness and got me back on track. Then once finally in Fayetteville where I'm never EVER leaving again, I met up with my husband and our local watering hole/sports bar. Alright Jessica, here's your test. Cute little waitress bounds up and asks us what we want to drink. I looked around the place watching people drinking their rum and cokes (my favorite mixed drink) laughing and cutting up, or pouring from their 3rd pitcher of beer of the night that just was getting started. "Sigh...Dr.Pepper please." Nursing my dr. pepper like it was the last beverage on earth I chatted about my wonderful day with hubby before the fights began. We ordered a super healthy dinner...I had a Reuben sandwich extra kraut (of course) and hubby had two chili dogs. Fights began but I couldn't pay attention. I couldn't get into it like I usually do. Sure I still enjoyed watching grown men dance around the ring and try to figure out who was bleeding and from where, but the truth was, I just couldn't do it. The smoke in the air, which with weakened senses doesn't bother me a bit, was making me incredibly sick to my stomach. I craved air, I craved...of all things, water. I needed to get out of there, and fast. So I apologized to my husband who is an old hat compared to me at resisting alcohol, and dashed out the door for my car. Driving home my eyes began to sting even more but this time it was because of emotions, not cigarette smoke. I cried the entire way home. This is going to be harder than I thought. It's so embarrassing to say, but it's like mourning a death in a way. Driving into my mixed neighborhood of families and college kids, every garage where college people resided was open with tv's and kegs and coolers and laughing, ridiculously jovial drunk kids in them. Pulling into my dark driveway I sat there with the engine off and I heard it, "Be still. Know I am God. I have plans for you Jessica. You're MINE. Trust Me, lean on Me." I smiled, got out of the car, shook my head at how silly it would sound to someone who has never struggled with an addiction as strong and life altering as alcohol but make no mistake, is very REAL. I could never ever in my wildest dreams imagine doing this alone. I can't. I won't. I'm leaning on the everlasting arms, and it feels sssoo good to admit just how powerless I really am.