Poor, Poor Pitiful Me....

Here we go and start with the first step of the twelve suggested steps by Alcoholics Anonymous.

1.  We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Lets listen to this video while I write about this first step.

Before we get started, I hope you noticed the saying by Warren Zevon.  "Enjoy Every Sandwich"
How true that is, you have to enjoy every day that you are given.

Back to my story, 2010 started out bad.  My business was dropping and my mom was going to the hospital every month, usually by ambulance.  She has a pace maker and she would get dehydrated due to a bladder infection.  It was the same story every month, and soon they began diagnosing pneumonia.  No symptoms, but definitely pneumonia.

She was getting weaker and weaker.  In the meantime my wife was getting sicker and sicker.  In 2009, we had lots of medical tests and all that they could tell us was a real bad acid reflux condition.  She would get up in the morning and throw up.  She was losing weight and looking frailer and frailer.  We were arguing over her not eating.

We found ourselves drinking more and more.  I couldn't sleep at night.  Most nights I would awake around
1:30 a.m. and fix a drink or two to enable me to get back to sleep.  I grew to like watching the TV series, Numbers.  Saw it every morning at 2 and 3.  Finally falling to sleep and waking around 6 a.m.

Fixed my first drink of the day, quit drinking coffee.  I would fix Carla one when she got up.  I would have two or three drinks in the morning while working on the computer.  Diet Coke and Vodka was my poison of choice.  I would quit drinking if I had to leave so no one would know about my drinking.

The drinking continued into the afternoon and night.  Never really felt drunk, I guess because I would only have about 1 per hour and with my size it takes alot to get drunk.  But we were drinking all the time while we were at home.  We never really drank away from home.  Part of the madness.

Looking back, I know God kept trying to reach out to me, but I keep telling God, not now, can't you see I'm busy.  I got all kinds of problems.

This became a daily ritual.  My life was spiraling out of control and I wasn't asking anyone for help, let alone God.  I was scared.  Thought that my mom was dying and not sure that my wife wasn't dying too.

My family has told me since that I had withdrawn from them.  I swear I never saw it.  I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.  Hence the song, "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me".

Coming up next, God finally gets my attention..  I take step one of the twelve steps..

Good additional reading about the 1st Step.