I arrived by airplane yesterday to start a roadtrip with friends to visit another friend’s new baby.The trip was supposed to be 4 adults and one child. It will now be two adults and child. I was upset yesterday about the two guys canceling. But I guess things could be worse.

I picked up my rental car at the airport and drove around. I drove to different memorable sights. I lived here for 7 years. I spent most of my twenties here. I turned 21 here. My first apartment was here and this was where I lived when married. It is also where I got my two DUIs.

I drove by the municipal courts and the jail. I looked up at the windows and wondered which one was my cell. I had bad flashbacks of coming here for court dates. I drove by the bus stop that I had to wait at when I lost my driver license. I cried a little and told myself I never want to go through that again. I thought of the woman I once met in AA who said she was sober for years and the one night she decided she could drink again, she got her 4th DUI.

Then I found an AA meeting. It was a small, women’s meeting. I was ten minutes late. But I enjoyed it. We read from the book the chapter “To The Wives.” While I was reading, it made me think of my mom and I started to cry so I passed the reading off to the next person. The highlight was they gave out monthly chips at the end. I GOT MY 90 DAY CHIP!

90 days Sober!

It felt so good walking out of that meeting with that in my wallet. I was so happy. But I was also scared thinking of a woman I met in the meeting. She was sober for 16 years. Then some tragedy happened to her family in January. She started to drink again. Just when I was getting sober, she was relapsing. She picked up a white chip right before I picked up this green chip. She also looked very familiar. I think we used to work at the same place. I thought “that could be me.” It scared me to think that no matter how confident I feel in this sobriety thing, relapse is always possible. This disease might go dormant but does not die.

I went to dinner with my friends. I told the two guys they are losers and I am mad at them for not joining the roadtrip. They kept apologizing. I told them they need to find time to go visit our friend and her new baby on their own. They said they would try. I shared with them my green chip. They all high-fived me. My one friend said she needs to get me a gift and she promises it will not be a bottle of wine.

We ordered dessert. I really wanted to order an almond rum cheesecake. I do not think the rum in it would affect me nor mess up my sobriety. But I got worried about ordering it in front of my friends. I wondered if I would have ordered it if I was alone. Then I thought I most likely would not because I would agonize too much about it. I got a coconut 6-layer cake. It reminded me of the coconut cake I had for 50 days but so much better!

I also ordered almond cappuccino. Then I panicked when drinking it because I thought it tasted like Amaretto. I asked my friend “taste this! Is that Amaretto? Is that alcohol?” He looked at me like I was crazy. Then I felt I was acting crazy. I told him nevermind. I looked at the desert menu and saw an Amaretto latte at the bottom with the alcoholic coffees. No, this was almond syrup in here. They would not have done that to me. Man, that would really suck if I lost my sobriety over a screw up on my order!

This morning, I went to another meeting. I was gonna try to get a 60 day chip. I realized one thing I really like about meetings in this area is that they have a lot in buildings dedicated to AA meetings. They are not all in a church basements. Some are in strip malls and others are small houses. I do not have to search and feel lost like I do when searching for the room in the churches back home. Also, they have more times here. They have 10:30pm meetings. They had a 7am, 8am, 9:30, 11am, noon, 1pm and a lot of different evening meetings. I felt more and more I really do not like my area meetings!

This meeting did not give out 60 day chips. I declined to get a second 90 day one. I really enjoyed this discussion. One of the first people to share talked about an accident she caused earlier this week while drunk and she is not sure why they did not test her BAC at the scene. She went to the hospital but got away from receiving a DUI. I shared about my DUIs and how it took me seven years after my last one to seriously attempt sobriety. Unfortunately, she left the room by the time I got to share. But there were many people in that room with less than 30 days who thanked me for my story afterwards and said it helped them. One guy said that he thinks 90 days is a dangerous time. Too much confidence. That made my eyes widen. Yep, that is how I feel right now. I also feel I have tools. But I am gonna keep his words in my head. I am glad I have this blog.

Mistake # 94- A friend was coming through town. She was visiting family but set aside a night to party with me. I was actually closer friends with her husband. He and I were “friends with benefits” many years ago. She did not like me when they first started dating due to my past history with him. But ten years later, she and I were finally friends.

But that night, we both got trashed. I was sore the next day because I wrestled with some girl which I don’t remember. I do not remember making out with that girl’s boyfriend before the wrestling match. And I only slightly remember having sex with my friend. She made me promise not to tell her husband. I kept that promise until 6 months later when I confessed to him during a blackout. He said he was more mad that he had to hear it from me instead of her.