Category: Uncategorized

 3 Gratitudes

Grateful for a comfortable, warm, dry bed with a sleeping companion to cuddle.

Grateful for dental benefits for myself and my family.

Grateful for a family that love me.

Positive Experience

Pretty much any moment with Rowan today. There were so many. Cuddling with her on the couch cause she was sick. making her a healthy juice of oranges, carrots and beets.

3 gratitudes

1. I am grateful I have a job I am reasonably good at and most of the time don’t mind going to.
2. I am grateful I have a loving wife whom I trust entirely with whom I have a mutually respectful, spiritual, and growing relationship. I am grateful we share goals, values, thoughts and humor.
3. I am grateful for a wonderfully perfect little girl. I love you, Rowan.

Journal

Positive experience of Mike House sharing with me about his weekend, how he and his girlfriend are on the outs and I could be there for him as a friend. It felt good that he trusted me enough to tell me what was going on with him.

I went ahead with my application to BCIT’s Construction Management Program. It is two years full time, 3-7 years part-time. I plan on doing it in 5-6. Graduation with a BTech in Construction Management will mean qualification for a position as a construction manager or a project manager in construction. Should be able to ask for $80-120k a year. High $100’s in Australia or Northern Alberta.

Rowan is a jem. Learning to crawl, and soon to walk. She has 8 teeth. I love her to pieces. She makes me so happy. And everything I do is for her.

short story: Ya know, I never get tempted. I completely lost the desire to get high or get drunk after about 4 months sober.

the long story: I had been trying to control my drug use since about 2003. I went to a $10,000 treatment center… started going to Alcoholics Anonymous regularly, and was still getting high. I just couldn’t seem to stop altogether no matter how badly i wanted to or no matter how many times I said “never again”. Eventually, on March 11 2005 I did my last bag of meth, called my sponsor in AA and actually started doing the steps with him. While I always thought the whole 12 step thing was a load of bullshit and purely academic, i was at that point willing to try anything to stop the seemingly endless cycle of getting high and regretting it and not getting anywhere in life. After about 4 months of stopping I found that I hadn’t thought about meth at all for a few days. And then that turned into a week, and then a month and the thought never returned. I can only attribute this to a change in my thoughts, feelings and reactions to life that were brought about by doing those steps. I mean, of course I “think” about it from time to time, but I no longer have that uncontrollable, all-consuming urge to get high for which i would sell my soul 😉 Anyway, it’s no cakewalk. Living completely sober has been tough and there’s a lot of shit that has been hard to not get high over. But I guess that different set of thoughts, feelings and reactions to life allows me to get though what I would have gotten high over.

I want a new laptop. Deciding between a Mac Air and a Macbook Pro. Or whatever they’re calling them these days.

Work is great these days. Karl seems to be grooming me for more of a management position. I only am able to get about 8 hours of actual work done a week – cutting material, installing material – the rest of the time I am running from jobsite to jobsite (I am managing 4 currently – Nuba, Balsam, 40th, 16th), meeting with and talking with subtrades, and assigning work to labourers and carpenters. It’s satisfying work and I seem to be alright at it.

I talked to Karl about the prospect of pursuing the Bachelor of Techniology in COnstruction Management Program at BCIT. He advised that he would hire someone with 10 years experience in construciton management over someone who took a program. I understand that. I am still going to write a recomendation letter for him to authorize for my meeting with the program director.

Carrie and I had a huge fight all last weekend. The dust has settled since and everything feel sgood again. The circumstances of our quarrels are never the important part. Last week it was about money, that i hadn’t told her how much money I owe in taxes. Also, that I didn’t get up with Rowan Sunday morning. Either way, she scared me more than she ever had. She yelled and physicually threatened me. It was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I felt so sad. I was sure that our relationship would never last. I hated that I would end up comprimising my wants and my security so that Rowan could have a mom and dad. I wouldn’t leave her no matter how bad it got between Carrie and I.

I just love Rowan so much. She is such a good girl. and she is growing so fast. She can sit on her playmat for as long as she wants. She’s p[laying with her toys, watching Dinosaur Train, babbling. She’s on solid foods now. Her hair is coming in curly!

Carrie isn’t into AA meetings anymore. She finds them “boring” and “hates going to them”. It’s been a struggle the last few months trying to encourage her to go to meetings. 4 weeks ago she finally committed to a wednesday night meeting and made it her home group. the following week when it was time to go to her meeting she decided at the last minute to not go. I have tried to tell her that we don’t really have a choice whether we want to go to meetings or not – part of our responsibility as sober alcoholics and that if either of us put anything else before meetings we will lose that stuff first when we relapse.

She says that without meetings she will still be fine – siting her sponsor and her sober friends as her connection to sobriety and the AA way of life…

Last night she told me, “come on, nick. We both know we’re not in to AA anymore”. I disagreed, pointed out the commitments I have to my sponsee Scott, my bi-weekly commitment running a step group at Turning Point and going to Golden Key at least every two weeks.

Of course I imagine that within a couple years of not going to meetings she will inevitably see drinking as a good idea and when that happens I fear I won’t like the new drinking Carrie. What will I do then? Is this part of the “through sickness and health” piece?

Am i wrong in thinking relapse is an inevitability of not going to meetings?
Am I being codependant in trying to get her to go to meetings or just a caring, worried husband?
How does this change our relationship if suddenly one of us stops going to meetings? Starts drinking?