One Year Later....Hoppy Toads and Lightning Bugs

I am laying in bed after an awesome day.  I was able to go visit my best friend Erin and see her precious baby Lincoln.  I then picked up the stepkiddos and came home to grill out for my Mom and stepdad who came to visit.  This evening once it got dark, the kids and I played out in the yard until 9pm.  We had flashlights out looking for hoppy toads (and catching them!  Not me, not me....But Tabi and Will did!), catching lightning bugs, and making clover flower necklaces.  Barefeet, crickets chirping, and a beautiful late spring night...these are the things that I am grateful for tonight.  I am VERY grateful that this year I am in a place where I can have Friday nights like this and TRULY feel blessed and enjoy them.  I would not have wanted to be anywhere else doing anything else with anyone else tonight.  Life is good! 

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, on May 2, I celebrated one whole year of sobriety - yes, including nights, weekends, and holidays.  :)  I never thought I would see that day.  I never even thought that I WANTED to see that day. I thought drinking would always be a part of my life, I never thought I would want to quit because I had liked it so much.  Until I didn't.  Know the feeling?  Loved it until it wasn't fun anymore?  Loved it until it had made your life completely unmanageable?  Yeah, that was me a year ago.  Actually, a year ago from this very day I was in Nashville in rehab.  My life was absolutely unmanageable but I was hiding out in a cabin with a bunch of awesome ladies trying to get my head screwed back on straight so I could come home and start a new life.  Become a new person.  Clean up the wreckage.  Love life.

And you know what?  Now I do love life.  I have become a new person.  I did start a new life and I have been cleaning up the wreckage.  Sunday, May 2, 2012 I went to my home group with my mother and my husband and was given my one year chip (it really IS heavy metal!  HA!) by my sponsor who I love and respect beyond belief.  The fact that my mother and my husband were there with me was so awesome.  How blessed am I that they stood by me through everything and probably love and respect me even more today for all the work I have put in and will continue to put in to grow as a person and never be the person that I was a year ago?  (Major run on sentence, but whatever.  It's my blog people...HA)  How excited was I at the end of the meeting when my sponsor said, "All those who have a year or more of sobriety, raise your hand to show the program works," and I got to raise my hand!  It DOES work.  It works if you work it...that sounds trite in the beginning maybe but the rewards are so beyong anything you could ever imagine.  It's WORTH it.  You are worth it. 

I have also acquired my first sponsee.  I am so lucky to have her in my life.  I've known her since she started this journey and even when she had a bump along the way she instantly came back.  She is so excited and so ready to change her way of life. She reminds me of myself when I first started this journey and my sponsor even said the same thing.  God puts people in our lives for a reason and I truly believe that.  I have to remember that I can't get anyone drunk and I can't get anyone sober.  I am here to share experience, strength, and hope and I look forward to being with her as she learns more about the beautiful person she truly is. 

I could probably talk all night about how happy I am to have that big one year chip in my book cover now but I think it's time to turn the lights down and read another awesome book so I can tell you all about it.  :)  Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!