As We Get A Little Older

We get a little wiser it seems. My better half is out of town this weekend seeing her kinfolk, and this is a rare Saturday night that I'll spend alone. Usually she's with me or I am working. Anyways, I had alot of folks asking me to come and hang out with them tonight, and I had made up my mind to go out with a particular group of friends, play music, hang out, maybe have a brew or two for the first time in over a decade. I hopped in the shower, threw on my duds and started out the door when I got to thinking: As much as my friends mean to me, the fact that I have managed to stay drug and alcohol free means a whole lot more. I know that I am strong-willed enough to hang around a party crowd and lay off the stuff, but on the other hand, I know that I am a recovering (yes, after 13 years, I still am recovering. Alcoholics perpetually recover. It is a constant battle to not drink. I can still taste it, still want it very much sometimes. I have to remind myself that it is what buried my dad, and the promise I made to the most dear person I have ever known-my grandmother). Life is about limits, and I know my limit will have to be zero. I ended a line of hard-drinkers in my family from my great-grandfather to my grandfather to my dad). So having said this, I think i'll listen to James Blunt's new song (which I am crazy about) among many others, maybe play my guitar some, piddle on the computer, catch USC-ND, grab a snack and enjoy a nice quiet evening here.

Good Deal dude. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beer1.gif[/img]

Great decision. That is simply a nice evening though man. I enjoy just kicking back and enjoying a good game alone sometimes. Especially if I do my truest old man impersonation and fall asleep in the recliner watching it. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Great choice. It's not worth throwing away something you've worked so hard for, for something so foolish.

Like I said, I think that my will would prevail, but seriously, why tempt it at all?

Exactly. I don't know if I could make the same choice you did if I had to make a choice like that.

James Blunt? [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Like his music.

I feel you on the burying your father due to alcohol. Before too long, as much as it pains me to say this, i will be doing the same. I know i never want to go down the same road he did with alcohol, he was always a hard workin man, but alcohol ruined his life again a few years back. He had been alcohol free for years, then a bad relationship and he threw his life away. He used to be a big feller, hard working..now thanks to alcohol he's down to nothing at all, a shell of what he used to be. I love my dad to death but it kills me to see him like that. I drink occasionally, but thanks to what i've witnessed through him, i know that i can never make drinking an everyday thing, or something that i do alot. Long history of drinking in my family as well, but knowing what it causes, i hope to never see me or anyone go down that road.

My dad never drank a drop in his life until he went to Vietnam. He used alcohol to (in vain) forget. He worked his [censored] off-hardest working man I have ever known, but when the sun went down and he had time to think, he drank. I was not in Vietnam with him-will never fully understand the hell he endured, thus I never criticized him for drinking.

Excellent choice. In my case, I think I just grew out of drinking like a fish. There for a time, I was buying booze out of reflex, not even when I'd want to drink. It seemed it just called to me every time I passed somewhere that sold alcohol. So from those of us who have been there, I commend you on your decision.

Sounds like a good decision to me. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/getsmile.tmp007816300.gif[/img]