May - The Month of Intergrity - My Adventure in Restoring Integrity

Yesterday, I went paddleboarding with six friends in recovery and I had set up the trip.  I am one month shy of 5 years of recovery and I was reminded how I would dream of planning adventures for friends - but have neither friends nor adventures.  Today, I have friends and adventures.  Today, I have integrity.  Of all the things I lost to my alcholism, my integrity was the most precious and one of the last things to go...I became a person of many promises and few commitments.  In my recovery, I do now what I was well known for prior to my addiction - I always did what I said I was going to do.  Today, I carry through. I am dependable.  You can count on me.

Easter - Not about the Resurrection or Rebirth, but about Life Everlasting

I went to church with my parents to make them happy.  Certainly, it is the least I can do to make them happy.  But the minister, Joel Hunter, spoke not about Easter being about the resurrection or about rebirth or about salvation - though he did include these messages.  His message on this Easter Day is that Christians need to honor that the resurrection of Jesus Christ truly means that Christ was rasied from the dead to live - that He lives still today in all Christians. (In all beings, I would assert).  I believe that the Universe offers us life and we must choose to live or choose to exist.  I have spent time existing and it is not worth living.  "Everybody dies, but not everybody lives..." so goes the hip hop lyric in Nicki Minaj's "Still I Rise".  I choose life - joyful, purpose filled living...

Good Friday - I do not fear death

When I was out drinking and destroying my life, I never feared death. Once I got sober, I saw the wreckage of my life and the damage to my family.  I have been spending the last 5 years trying to make amends, trying to change the past by changing the present.  This morning I woke up to the BBC and the question - Do you fear death? No. I don't.  I know that no death can be bad today because I completely and utterly trust my creator.  I am so amazed that I do not fear death.  If life is truly an adventure, then death...well, I believe that my karma is good and that no matter what awaits, it will be bearable.

Lose to Win! Never give up! Never give in!

"We can do anything for just one day. So, just for today, let us be unafraid, unafraid of life,unafraid of death, which is the shadow of life; unafraid to be happy, unafraid to enjoy the beautiful, to believe the best.
Just for today let us live one day only, forgetting yesterday and tomorrow, and not trying to solve the whole problem of life at one.

Daily Challenges

I have a month's worth of tasks to get done in a week; but I'm not going to stop and stress as doubt is for the meak. As Teddy Roosevelt said "believe you can and you're half way there." So I'm going to do my best and show the world how much I care. It's not the one great feat that makes me who I am; it's the daily discipline to do the best I can.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." Though things are rough right now, but I don't stop going, I don't stop looking to those stars. I remember well when my soul was imprisoned by imaginary bars. Today, no matter what I am free to chose my attitude and action. Today, I can live with doubt or with faith and determination. So, I am up and ready to live with strength and passion!

Many men go fishing all of their loves without knowing it is not fish they are after - Thoreau

I wanted to be an international business lawyer and became one, but then I was not happy. I drank to be happy and I drank to forget that I was not happy. Soon alcohol became the only solution for the problems that I had as a result of my self-destructive alcoholic thinking and behavior.  Today, I am sober. I have been sober over 4 years and yet I still search.  I am a seeker.  I search for answers to many questions, but I no longer look for them in the bottom of a bottle or the bottom of a cocktail glass.  Today, I pray. Today, I meditate. Today, I find answers in the wisdom of others and in quiet listening to what is in my heart.  I find answers in great books and I fins answers in qualified professionals. I am willing to listen today.  Today I seek honesty, hope faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, fellowship, justice, perseverance, spirituality and service to others.

Acceptance may be the answer, but hope and courage are the tools for the question.

Yesterday, I received the materials to apply for the Certified Addiction Professional certification documents from the State of Florida.  Barred by the Governor for the time being from obtaining my Florida law license, I am trying to regain my professional standing...I have a vision for a drug, alcohol and chemical dependency center in Orlando, Florida.  This week, I was able to share this vision with a friend who gave me encouragement and has ideas to help this dream come true.  I know that what Thoreau says is true "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

The fact is that I do not have courage so much as I simply find staying in the same place or going backward as unbearable.  Forward confidently or unconfidently is the only direction that I can go...I love being sober; I am not happy to be in this place in my life...that's what makes the adventure.