ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

I'm not in a hurry, though, the rains will come... I hope.

And the storms, the storms that I love, the refreshing springtime storms that blow in from the southwest with a crack and a boom and drenching rain that makes you want to rip off your shirt and stand out in it and just rejoice being alive....

Some other night, but soon, soon....

This night, though... is different.

For eighteen years I was sober. It was hard, hard at first, but I did it, for I knew that the booze was gonna kill me if I didn't stop.

I did have a few slip-ups, around year 15 and 16.

And then... I decided that I was now mature enough that I could drink and it wouldn't kill me.

And yes, I still feel that way, right now. The booze won't kill me.

It will just make me less than what I could be, less than what I want to be, less than what my family and friends deserve.

I don't want to be less... I want to be more.

And my last drink is sitting on the table here in front of me, and I will drink it, I will relish it... and when it's gone, so will be that part of my life.

Right now I am pretty sober. My resistance has built up a bunch over the last two years, and pretty sober means that I've had less than a pint of booze tonight... my BA would be about 0.20, though, way too high to drive.

I have been drinking more than a quart every two days for... two years, probably. I can't pinpoint a date, unlike the date today... there are no mentions in my journal, no recollection of the decision to drink again.

And I love, truly love the taste of whisky. Good whisky. Evan Williams, just as good as Jack Daniel's Black at half the price. Smoooooth whisky, straight it burns the esophagus going down just as it should, mixed with anything it gives it's full flavor....

But this is not an ad for that brand. Most of it is good, I've found.

And it's all... Bad. For. Me.

And I'm done with it.

Now, if I can get over my love/hate relationship with these damned cigars....

But that, dear friends, is the next stage... it's much harder to move that donkey. Two-by-fours must be applied regularly and with gusto....

I'm really not sure about how I feel about this whole thing... as far as my ability to quit, I mean. For some reason, I seem to think that it's gonna be easy... and that scares me. Cocky? Me? WTF?

The fact that I did it before doesn't really mean anything, y'know.

I just hope that it's gonna be easy... I don't know if I'm prepared for... hard. And cocky?

Yeah, I'm scared. Of the physical part more than the mental part.

I've seen alcoholics coming down... it generally ain't pretty.

And as far as help goes... I've got my brother. And my sons.... and Karen. And brother Dan understands. And JD and Tyler and Karen... they all love me. (Not that Dan doesn't!)

OK. Just had my last swallow of whisky-tainted Caffeine-free-diet-Coke.

We'll see what happens....

I had a pretty good day at work, it was terribly busy, I don't know what they would have done if I would have taken another day off...

I took off at 15:30, a guy was coming over after 16:00 to give me a bid on the garage.

And he got here about 17:30... really nice guy, and he told me that I couldn't build a detached garage of the dimensions that I needed, it would have to be attached. And I had been given to believe that attached would be a lot more trouble, but he explained it all to me, and the reasons for the codes being the way that they are, and he really knows what he was talking about. To attach a garage, all that you need to do is make the common wall fireproof by the code. And that would only be about twenty feet, so that's really no big deal, since the roof will be parallel to the north end of the house. There will be a saddle roof between them.

And I also found out that building costs have gone up since I last priced a garage... about 50%. Wood, concrete and labor.

Anyway, Karen and I went out to get me a new money clip... the one that I've used for 30+ years finally wore out and broke into three pieces, heh.

No luck on that, but then we went to Olive Garden and ate, that was nice and fairly inexpensive....

And here we are at now, almost. I have spent time since we got home singing and playing... and wondering if I can sing sober.

I can sing fair after I've had one drink, and really well with two. After that I start tapering off, and after about four I'm embarrassed to listen to the files, heh.

I guess that I'll find out....

Voted today... I haven't seen the results yet, but Kansas has a man/woman only marriage amendment on the ballot... No! on that, of course.

I need to give myself a haircut and a trim and get to bed, early wake-up tomorrow again, and the rest of the week too.