IKV Story Time contest DISCUSSION thread

[Bovinia]

Smiles, I know you don't know me from Adam, but I am touched by your story, your courage, and your honesty!

I won't bore any of you with all the details, but your story parallels mine in many ways. The drunken years, the getting sober (over 20 years sober for me) the pain of losing friends to the diseases of addiction, to the loss of my own 10 year marriage this spring when my soon to be ex was sentenced to 3 years in the state pen because of his alcohol and other addiction related behavior. If it weren't for J5, and other very wonderful friends here on these forums, "There but for the grace of God..."

I wish you all the best, you deserve it, and you've earned it, friend!

 

[SmilingSlasher]

If we can't be honest about ourselves (or to ourselves) then how are we not liars? I don't like being lied to........I don't like lying to others. Its easy to pick others apart...............picking yourself apart not so much. Do the easy one you hurt someone else and yourself............do the hard one and you can only help yourself.

Thanks Bovinia. Keep ya head up.......I'll do the same. : )

 

[5cardstud]

Glad you made your way past it, 5Card.

Like Issac, my friends and I started young. I grew up in a little bitty town named Gibsonville in North Carolina (Google it........have a laugh). Not a lot of people there and even less to do............and for us, it seemed there were 2 things to do..........."get wasted" or "get in trouble" (if we were lucky we could manage both in one night). I'm just glad I met people who truley cared about me, like Nicol........(we met when I was just 17 and she was 16). We ALL (both my old friends and my new friends) had our battles with things in life but as all those older friendships seemed to fade, my friendship with Nicol only grew.

After I met the woman who would be my wife (now EX wife) things with Nicol started to seem distant too. Nicol felt that Samantha wasn't right for me. I think, in that very moment.........she was, but in an entire life........probably not (but that's hind-sight). I was closer to my wife than anyone and the day we split..........I was wrecked. I lost faith in everything..........myself, God, life, friendship.....everything. I had already dealt with my Father-in-law being killed, my Dad being diagnosed with cancer and watching him dwindle to nothing and die.................and a year later my marriage of 10 years failed.

Man..........I tanked a 5th of Jim Beam in an hour and at that time I hadn't drank a DROP of alcohol in 14 years and some months. I was WASTED!!! The next day I was in the hospital E.R. because my morning "water" was black.........like COFFEE with no creamer. They ran panals and determined that I damaged a kidney by forcing so much alcohol thru myself without having a tolorance. That was January of last year.

Proud to say I'm over a year past that slip up and no desire to have a drink.....................or a wife. : )

I think sometimes the reason we're so hard on ourselves is because we don't like what we see. Booze and all the new booze buddies telling us how great we are feels better that us not liking ourselves. When I come to realize I am not a POS, whether alone or married, my life got better. Especially after I turned the whole thing over to someone that runs things better than I ever could, The Lord.
We have to remember that everything in the world is replaceable except people, us included, and how we live our lives.

If we can't be honest about ourselves (or to ourselves) then how are we not liars? I don't like being lied to........I don't like lying to others. Its easy to pick others apart...............picking yourself apart not so much. Do the easy one you hurt someone else and yourself............do the hard one and you can only help yourself.

Thanks Bovinia. Keep ya head up.......I'll do the same. : )

I've found when I'm really mad at someone it's really, down deep, not them I mad at. After I analyse it I find it's me I'm mad at because what they did to make me angry reminds me of something I did, that wasn't right, and that's the real reason for the anger.