Wednesday Words of Wisdom

Wednesday Words of Wisdom

Do you miss it?

A few things that I do NOT miss about my drinking days:

• Obsessing all day over when I was going to be able to drink next


• The money that I spent on going out and buying alcohol


• Feeling so sick the morning after a binge that I had to make myself vomit


• Wicked headaches that lasted all day during a hangover


• Arguing with people I love when drunk over nothing at all


• The drama that I either caused or was involved in as a bystander


• Figuring out how the heck I was going to get home when I drank too much to drive


• People who claim to be friends but only show up when you party with them


• Blackouts


• Looking wretched after a night out but thinking I still looked fabulous


• Super late nights and lack of sleep


• Trying to function the day after super late nights and lack of sleep


• Feeling restless and alone all the time


• Lying, manipulating, and hiding things from those who truly love me


• Being a bad example to my siblings and anyone else who might have looked up to me


• Hiding alcohol in plastic cups, fast food cups, etc. to try to conceal the alcohol

Things that I DO miss about my drinking days:

Wednesday Words of Wisdom

I like words. Is that weird? I love quotes and I would have an entire wall of quotes in my house if my husband would let me. I have found some really amazing quotes that deal with recovery and I've decided to share some of those with you every week. Wednesday Words of Wisdom....by me. Because I'm wise. Or something like that. :)

Brayden Edward Cashin - Welcome to the world!

This morning the phone woke us up around 5:45am and it was my sister (technically half sister to me she is just my sister) saying she was in labor and at the hospital! EEEE!!! I could not go back to sleep so baby sis who lives with me and I went to the hospital this morning around 9am. Poor Bethany was so tired from being up all night. I can't even imagine. Childbirth...no thank you. I'll just let everyone around me do it so I can still get to be around babies sometimes. :) Around noon she was only 4 centimeters so we thought we had awhile but within about an hour we had a baby!!! My precious little nephew Brayden Edward Cashin was 7 perfect pounds and 7 perfect ounces. Hearing him let out a big cry when we were outside of the birthing room was one of the best sounds ever. New babies are so darn cute. The little noses just crack me up. So tiny! Then I thought, hm. My bulldog weighs 7 times what this baby weighs....wow. I think of the weirdest things. Anyway, thank God that everything went well and I look so forward to watching my new little nephew grow!

Welcome to the world Brayden and congrats to Bethany and Justin!!!

Oh to hell with it...

Last night I was browsing around the internet for other recovery blogs and I found quite a few that I really enjoyed reading. Everyone has a different story - some who have long term recovery, some are just getting into the program, and some are trying to decide if they even need a program. I found one blog that really stood out though. This blog is a man in recovery who is brutally honest and it is beyond refreshing to see. You can check his blog out here. In recovery or not, I think most people would find this a good read. But back to the brutally honest part...it's refreshing. You get into recovery and you are on the proverbial "pink cloud" and everything is sunshine and rainbows. But then a bad day hits. Wait, those aren't supposed to happen now right? I mean, I'm SOBER for crying out loud! Ah, if only it were that simple.

Sex and the City is one of my favorite shows of all time. There is one episode where Samantha is to speak at a charity benefit for Cancer. She writes this lovely speech that sounds all wonderful and everything is right where it should be but when she gets up to give it, she breaks out into a horrible sweat. She is uncomfortable. She is miserable. So she instead rips off her wig exposing her bald head and says, "Oh to hell with it..." Then she gets honest. Brutally, not pretty, really honest.

It kind of had me take a look at my own blog. I think a lot of us have a habit of putting a lot of really good things on a blog. Myself included. Great recipes, great days spent with family, kids accomplishments, etc. I think sometimes though on the days that blogging would probably really be beneficial to me I think to myself, "Okay, no one wants to hear you bitch and moan about a bad day." So then I go bitch and moan to my sponsor or hit a meeting. Not that those are bad things but I guess I want to make sure I'm being real on this blog. Even if it isn't always pretty and well put together. I'm ripping the wig off people. In the words of the great Samantha Jones, "To hell with it!"

So how do I REALLY feel right now in my sobriety? Most days I truly do feel great. I mean I'm not hungover, I'm not lying to anyone, I'm not manipulating people, and I'm actually doing the things that a real grown up wife/sister/daughter/stepmom does. It's pretty wonderful. Except for on days when it is not.

What is a bad day in sobriety? Well, it doesn't mean you have to go out and drink or use. I would be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind though. It does. Just Saturday night after a particularly stressful week I thought, man, a glass of wine would be so great while I'm fixing dinner. It's a fleeting thought though. Right after I think that I go straight to, "You idiot. You can't drink just ONE glass of wine. You know this. Get praying." So I do. But does it sometimes agitate me when I see people who can drink normally knowing that I can't? Yes. It does. I am not mad at them for being "normal" when I think those things. Probably more mad at my own disease. I know that I can't have two glasses of wine with dinner and be finished though. And that's that.

Other bad day things? How about when the guilt of the crap that you have put everyone through rears its ugly head? Those days are fun right? I'm in the middle of doing my 5th step right now so a lot of these things have popped up. I think most of the time I can tell myself, "April, you are a sick person. You were not yourself then. You didn't mean to treat everyone the way you did...you just needed help. Badly." Some days though the guilt hits me like a ton of bricks. I don't let myself wallow for long but when it hits, it HITS.

For me another thing that is extremely frustrating is that sometimes I can't deal with LIFE. That's right, LIFE. Day to day things. If I get a week that is jam packed busy, I get completely overwhelmed and stressed and my mental state gets all out of whack. It doesn't make me want to drink but it makes me feel less than great for sure. Those are the times that in the past I would have heavily self medicated with bottles of wine. Now I have to dig myself out and get to a meeting even if it's the last thing I want to do that day. I think, why does this stuff stress you out? People live every day dealing with MUCH more stress than you do. Oh yeah...I'm sick. That's right. My bad.

I guess those are the main things that I deal with on bad days. Everyone says the first year of sobriety is a total roller coaster. I would agree. I get motion sick really easily so roller coasters have never been my thing and now is no exception. But the good outweighs the bad by FAR. I sure as heck don't want to go back to the way things were before. I know that they CAN very easily which is what keeps me working my program and "doing the deal." I know I have to.

So thanks to the guy who is so real on his blog. I hope to start being more real as well. Baby steps.

Here's what's been cookin'

Two posts in one week! I am a crazy woman. HA I wanted to get on here to post a few recipes that I've made lately. I used to have a blog devoted solely to my baking and cooking but as I said, that was called "wine lover's cooking diary." I feel like that isn't appropriate anymore....ahem. Anyway, I am still cooking and baking though and I want to share some things that I have made lately in case you are looking for some new things to try! I love the internet for finding fabulous recipes...I don't know what I did before cooking blogs!!!

I like to use the crockpot when I can since we are so darn busy. Hubby isn't as huge of a fan as me but he also isn't the one who has to find time to fix dinner with our schedules so sometimes I just go for it. :) This loaded baked potato soup is SO good. It was perfect for a cold day and smelled so delicious while cooking. Very easy to make! If you want it a little thicker then use less chicken broth. I will probably use less next time.

One of my all time favorite fall recipes is for iced pumpkin cookies. I made these a few years ago for the first time and now I get requests for these every year. I made these for hubby's secretary last week for her birthday and everyone loved them! Whoever came up with this recipe deserves a medal. The pumpkin cookie part is good enough to eat on it's own but is made every yummier with the drizzled icing. YUM! (picture from allrecipes.com)
Here is another yummy crockpot recipe - southwest chicken stacks. I LOVED this one. I could live on Mexican type food though so it would be something for me to NOT have loved it. You can really do a lot of different things with this recipe - make it into tacos, burritos, quesadillas, or my favorite, over tortilla chips. I make mine into nachos with all the fixings and it is so good. Even kid friendly which is always good! (photo from Mel's Kitchen Cafe blog)

I guess one final post should be the birthday cake that I made for my stepson's birthday. I was terrified to make this cake. I am pretty crafty - not to toot my own horn, but creativity is just one of my strengths. But cake? I had never messed with cake. Cookies? Yes. Cake? No. But Will wanted an army tank cake, so an army tank cake was what he would get. I found some ideas on Pinterest and used those as starter guides. Here is what mine ended up looking like:

Hope you enjoy at least one of these recipes - I have lots more where these came from so I hope to share them with you soon! Happy Sunday!