4 chocolate chip cookies in your honor

Thanks again to Amy (day 125) for linking to Roger Ebert’s blog post about alcoholism.  I spent the weekend (no, really) reading the one billion comments on his post. Here’s one comment that I loved. I don’t know this chick, but I wish I did:

Molly: Alcoholism is a behavior, it’s a reaction. It has nothing to do with the amount you drink. Rather it’s the decisions your body and brain make when you have been drinking. You do things you would never do when sober. You drive drunk, you get emotional, you pick fights with strangers. You sleep around, you become belligerent, you skip work. Sometimes it happens after one drink. Sometimes after many.

For those hung up on the “higher power” aspect [of AA], I encourage you to count your blessings. Life may not have always been good or fair to you, but you have not actually reached rock bottom. For when you do, you will gladly and easily give yourself up to a higher power. You will look at a radiator, a door knob, the person next to you, and you will know and cherish how truly lucky you are to be standing there, in that spot. You will trust anyone and everything that might even, in the slightest, help you make it through the next hour, the next day, the next week. Similar to hugging the toilet and saying over and over again, “Just get me through this. I swear I will never do this again. I will never touch the stuff ever again.” That is how you cling to your fellow AA members. You ask them, you beg of them, to help you, to forgive you, to show you the way. And they do, and they do over and over again, and likewise you do, and you do over and over again. And you are easy on each other, and you are hard on each other, and you lean on each other and you prop each other up. You are their higher power and they are yours.

And you believe it because you have witnessed it. Because that is the only way to explain your standing there, your being there. They are pinching you to remind you that you are still there, that you are still you, that you are still worthwhile.

[underlined bits are my emphasis added]

i know that the online world is not the same as AA (i’ve said it before, and i’m going to keep saying it).  BUT. i’m super beyond thankful every day to be in the company of such amazing sober friends. You prop me up. I can lean on you. i can ask questions and get answers.  Thanks you 🙂 I’ve just eaten four chocolate chip cookies in your honor. They were warm, right out of the oven. There’s a bowl of dough in the fridge. I can make some for you too if you need a pick-me-up.

Team 100 update: We now have 32 members, welcome to our newest members: Lawyer Anne (2), WalkSober (4) and Mumscriber (3). Also, gigantic happiness and parades to Heidi (30). And Terri hits 100!