I have been sober nearly 8 months, early in my sobriety I visited my parents. Many years I have visited them to go out with friends and crawl home in the early hours and sit in suffering with a hangover and spending time with them was a real effort. I argued with my mum at times as I came in drunk and I have many regrets.
Throughout all that, whilst my mother was angry at times with me she always loved me and was there with me and I was safe in the knowledge of this in my head, being a selfish alcoholic, I took it for granted.
After about a month sober I was visiting and had improved alot. Mood was better etc and we all got on great, no arguments. My mum gave me a gift as I was leaving and when I got home and opened it, it was a prayer box with little papers in it to write down your prayers. Still carrying resentments I wrote down “let her mean it!!” afterward I realised it was angry so I softened the !! to make a smiley 
. Put it back in the box, put it in a cupboard and forgot about it.
I’m just back from visiting for Christmas, nearly 8 months sober and a have progressed unbelievably since back then. Several times over the visit my mum was unprompted telling me how proud she was of me, this time I believed her. I was introduced to people proudly and the holiday season went without a single drama.
I have moved house so was sorting through some old things yesterday and I found the prayer box. I opened it and saw the “let her mean it!!” and had to really think about what I meant back then and it came to me. I wanted her to mean it when she said she was proud of me. I had a sudden rush of emotions through my body and mind.
My prayer was answered.
I have been thinking about it and it wasn’t answered in the way I probably initially intended it. I actually had to let her mean it. My past actions in no way enabled my mother to be proud of me. My actions now do and it was not her who had to change, but me.
Not sure what the significance of this was but every so often something like this comes along and gives us a whole new perspective.
Peace and love to you all.
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Great post, thanks for sharing.
That is one of the many things I really love about my sobriety…being proud of myself.
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The power of prayer is so amazing!! Thank you for sharing this post !
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Great post, thanks for sharing!
My brother does not speak to me now that im in recovery. We use to smoke weed together and now havent found anything else in common, yet… I dont know his exact reason of not speaking to me, but maybe one day that will change… But i have no control over the situation. The only thing i can do is stay sober and do the next right thing.
Im going to start to pray about the situation. Thanks for the hope!
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Keep striving in life to do the right thing and things like this happen, the pride I mean. I can’t explain the coincidental timing though and I’m not going to try. I will put a prayer in the box for you and your brother @Just4Today and I am sending my hope your way.
Listen to your inner voice for guidance on what the right thing to do is, sense check it if you have to, then do it and good will come. It takes work and practice to get your thinking that way but you can do it.
I lost control of some of my thinking when drinking, I’m sure of that, thankfully I have never done anything completely drastic or illegal, but waking from a black out is the most distressing situation I have ever faced, it took 3 to convince me something was wrong, even though I already knew, thats how powerful the mental obsession is. I am a middle class, good career, good family guy, how could this have been happening to me I thought? It made me make changes as I had powerless moments where my sane mind did not know what my body had done. Therefore I had become powerless over alcohol, I am an alcoholic.
Yesterday was 230 days and I had a few realisation moments, finding old news papers, one being a significant relapse date in 2015 and screwing up a holiday to New York I had planned for my partner and I, nothing really bad happened then, but I can remember the look of disappointment on his face as a result of my selfishness and point blank denying I had been drinking, I now know you can’t hide 5 pints of Guinness now especially after 7 months sober and I got so drunk I never read the news paper I bought. It was still folded perfectly but I clearly remembered the day. I got sober straight away, but it put a terrible cloud on the holiday.
Stay strong and stay sober everyone and thank you for your kind messages.
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. Put it back in the box, put it in a cupboard and forgot about it.