An Attitude of Gratitude...

TWO years. 24 Months. 104 Weeks. 730 Days. Over 17,000 Hours! Happy "Birthday" to meeeeeee!!!!!!

At any given time, in the Oklahoma City metro area, you can walk into one of the local Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouses and find a meeting being held on the topic of "gratitude." I think the number of gratitude meetings increases tenfold during the month of November, probably to coincide with Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday season. Some in recovery absolutely love gratitude meetings, while others absolutely despise them. While I don't see the point in loathing the meetings, I guess I could understand their being a point in time where I would be like "meh. Don't tell me what to do. If I'm cranky, let me be cranky! I have nothing to be grateful for!" Fortunately, I'm not in one of those moods right now, nor have I been in quite some time! Life has been just one big steaming pile of change here lately, but it's all good. It's not easy, but it's good. Plus, by the time November comes around, I have PLENTY to be grateful for...

Work, work work!
Shortly after Labor Day, it started to become pretty impossible to ignore the fact that I needed to start looking elsewhere for work. I needed a bump in pay, since I'll be moving out in March. I also needed to find a job that had a little more flexibility with the hours, since I'll start working on practicum hours this summer. For those reasons, and a few others, I started the job hunt once again. It didn't take too long before some potentials popped up. Within a few weeks, I had a job offer from DHS... AND a job offer from Men's Firstep as their new program coordinator. Although the position with DHS definitely paid more, my heart told me to take the position with Firstep. I turned in my resignation and started working full time for OKC Metro Alliance (Firstep) on October 21, 2019.

We're three weeks in and I absolutely love it. I get to work directly with the guys and help them maneuver through the program and they help me on a daily basis by reminding me what it was like to be a client/resident of Firstep. You're either one of those clients that is HUNGRY for sobriety, willing to do anything you can to get it or you're not. The only difference between where I was and where I am now is that I need to work with those "not" clients and meet them where they are. I can't make them WANT sobriety, but I can show them that it is achievable and it has some pretty kick-ass results.

School Daze
So there obviously has been something keeping me pretty occupied for the last two months (since I haven't written anything in that time) and you would be a PRETTY good guesser if you said that the prime culprit of what gobbles up my time is SCHOOL. I was enrolled in nine hours (three classes) this first semester. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but... damn. Between work, school and "other (everything else in life), it takes some pretty creative juggling to make it all jive. Overall, I'd say I'm moderately successful. I have work down and I can definitely fit school in there, but it is satisfying that "other" category that is proving to be a bitch. I just don't have enough time in the day! There's "me" time, relationship time, sobriety time, family time... all of that. Ugh. I'm workin' on it.

ANYWAYS... school is going great. I absolutely love my classes and I feel like I'm learning a LOT. They aren't wasting your time with any filler classes, they are just going straight for the juicy stuff. They are teaching us EXACTLY what we need to do to get our license and get out there and WORK! The subject matter, while challenging, is exactly what I love. The work is difficult and time-consuming, but it makes me think "man, I KNOW that I'm going into the right field" on a daily basis. This first semester is nearing the end, and it looks QUITE possible that I'll make straight A's. I just have to keep up the work until December 6!

If all of those puzzle pieces fall perfectly into place over the next two years, I'm really hoping that the "school" part of life and the "work" part of life just kind of meld together. I really hope that I can take my degree and I apply it to working with Metro Alliance and I can just kind of continue to "grow up" within this organization and stay here after graduation. That's the ideal situation anyway...

It's the Holiday Season (hoop-de-do and dickery dock...)
...and don't forget to hang up your sock! Sorry, I didn't mean to spontaneously start typing Christmas lyrics, but I JUST CAN'T HELP IT!!! Despite the mindless rigmarole of daily life, I absolutely love the holiday season. Especially now that I'm in somewhat of a position to be able to afford SOME sort of presents for my family. Even with the frustration/confusion of the who's, what's, when's and where's, it usually has a tendency to work itself out. Thanksgiving will be new this year, I'll be going up to Tulsa with Megan and having turkey day with her fam. I'll be off on Black Friday, but I doubt I do a whole bunch of anything special. Christmas Eve will consist of the "normal" holiday get-together with my fam. I think we're having it at Denise's... which was fun last year. Meg and I might have a little surprise up our sleeves. Christmas Day is also the usual, presents and breakfast in the morning and then I'll go see a movie with Ma and Nicky. What will we see? Who knows. I'm going to try and push for "1917." I haven't even gotten far enough to think about what in the world new year's includes... But I know everything will work out! I know I'm not super wealthy and life isn't PERFECT, but this is definitely where that "gratitude" month starts playing into everything. We (or I) have it pretty damn awesome, especially compared to the rest of the world. It's DEFINITELY amazing compared to how I was or where I was this time two years ago. This brings me to the next topic...

It's my Birthday (and I'll cry if I want to?)
By this time on November 13, 2017, the proverbial shit had already hit the fan and I was (probably?) laying on a cot at the Public Inebriate Alternative (aka the Drunk Tank) in Oklahoma City. My emotions spanned the entire spectrum from indifference to anger to giving up and finally to complete surrender. I'm fortunate that I had a family that was still willing to come and pick me up, even after the endless amounts of shit that I had pulled. We had a brief and stern, yet compassionate conversation when we got home. Then we went to bed, not knowing what the future would bring.

I was fortunate to have a girlfriend that didn't run for the hills when she found out that I had been keeping a not-so-little secret from her for about six months. These people stood by my side and helped me take the next steps from TRC and then on to long-term treatment at Firstep. Six months of ups and downs and struggles and victories. "Graduating" from Firstep and going back out into the "real world." Rebuilding my life. Working. Going back to school. GRADUATING school. Going BACK to school. Making the return to Firstep as staff instead of a client. All of it was possible because of brutal honesty with a police officer who decided to show me a little bit of mercy and turn right down one street instead of turning left onto another. Then I decided to keep my promise to Officer Loggins and I didn't pick up a drink on the 14th. I kept fighting and started to string days together.

Honestly, day 730 doesn't really feel a whole lot different than day 700. I'm excited and I'm proud, but this is life now. This is the new "normal." Parts of that old life still pop up every once in a while, but I have the tools to know how to handle them appropriately. Those tools help me get through day 730. I might even get a day 731...