If you've been in recovery for a few 24-hour periods, you've met them in meetings: alcoholics whose drinking has brought them to a fork in the road of their lives: stop now and keep everything they have or continue and lose it all.I know all of us faces that prospect, but I'm talking about people for whom alcoholic destruction is no longer a theory, like a woman I met I'll call Meg.

Meg is a former army officer (one of the few active-duty women who have actually staffed combat missions). She has a bachelor's degree in a technical field. She is physically attractive. She drives a late-model sports car and owns a home in the nicest area of town. She married another army officer, and they have an adorable toddler together.

A couple of years ago, Meg lost her military career when she tested positive for cocaine. She quit that habit to focus on (more legal) alcohol. Here's what that's gotten her, just during the past year:

• A driving-while-intoxicated arrest and conviction
• A divorce
• A Child Protective Services investigation into her parenting
• A custody battle
• Bills putting her near the verge of bankruptcy

Meg started coming to 12-step meetings once her husband moved out, wanting to get sober in order to maintain custody of her daughter. She got a sponsor, got a Big Book, worked with her sponsor every week for several months, and went to at least one meeting a day. She picked up a 6-month chip a few weeks ago.

Child Protective Services got out of her life.  Her soon-to-be-ex was ordered to pay child support. Her DUI was dismissed after some time on an occupational drivers license. Everything was looking up for Meg!

She spent yesterday very drunk.

And so, the $64,000 question: why? She could lose everything she's worked for! It could get even worse for Meg if she keeps drinking!

Page 24 of the 4th edition says this, and it sums up for me the nature of the disease:

We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousnesses with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

So often I hear in meetings "If you don't take the first drink, you won't get drunk!", usually followed by guffaws of newcomers and the easily amused.

That's not in the Big Book, and for good reason (stated above): I'm without defense against the first drink! It's not that I didn't realize that alcohol is intoxicating.

If someone like Meg can look at all she has to lose and still drink, can't any of us? If her self-will could have prevented her relapse, surely it would have yesterday.

Robert Frost described two paths before him in a forest, and he chose the path that had carried fewer travelers thus far. He concludes that "... made all the difference."

 I hope there's a road less traveled ahead for Meg.

Day 13

It's official - P appears on the county jail list of active inmates.

This has been a humbling thing to watch, in that it reminds me of the gravity of alcoholism. While I've been doing this for many years, I have never witnessed someone go back out and then also witness their downfall - everyone I've seen go back out just disappears.

Throughout my day I have found myself marveling at the things I can do and experience that she will not be able to for a long while: taking my son to school, deciding what to prepare for dinner, cleaning the house ... none of these things seemed mundane today. They seemed like gifts.

It is Gratitude Month, indeed.

Bonus post for moms!

If you're a mom on the road to recovery, check out the ladies at SoberMoms:

http://sobermoms.ning.com/

Replacing fear with faith

I am a world-class worrier - if worry were an Olympic sport, I'd have been on a Wheaties box years ago. I have spent many years worrying about things that have never happened. I justified my drinking with the release from worry that it gave me for many years.

Now that I am sober, I have to deal with the same brain. As the country song goes, "I've got this thinkin' problem ...". This is why I need to read each day something out of Dale Carnegie's book Stop Worrying and Start Living. This book's techniques have helped me immensely with my weird need to freak out.

Here's an example: yesterday was the first day of school for my son. This is his second year in the public school system. Just like the first day of last year, my son's father called the school and told them I have enrolled my son under false pretenses (I don't know what that means), threatening to sue the school, the principal, and the district.

Last year, I got really upset about the scene he made - I envisioned him dragging me back into court, giving a judge another chance to take my son away from me. I literally began plotting strategy for a hearing that never took place.

I didn't enjoy it any more this year: I apologized to the school administration and filed his bizarre e-mails in the stack I've had for years now. What's different is that I recognize that he is the same size as me in the eyes of God. The same laws of nature apply to him - if they didn't, they would be called The Laws of Nature Except for Evan J. So this year I'll do some things differently:

I won't throw gas on grill when there's nothing to cook. Because we both answer to Nature's Law, I do not need to get drawn into a verbal pissing match with him. It does no good and wastes precious moments from my life - I didn't divorce him to keep fighting with him!

Get correct perspective. Most human behavior has a pattern, and he is no exception. He sends all parties involved ugly threatening e-mails and letters, demanding that everyone do his bizarre bidding. No one responds, and then one day, it stops like a hurricane losing steam. There will be another soon, but they always pass without any real incident.

Adjust my expectations. I have a court order directing my legal obligations in raising my son, and I obey that court order. He has not. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that he will continue to disobey. It is unreasonable to think that one day after 45 years of societal narcissism, he will say to himself, "Hmmm... maybe I should be of service to others, rather than a blight on my community? I'll start by ceasing to harass my ex-wife."

Embrace the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that Evan and I will end up before the original judge again over less than a year's worth of custody, and I can show that I have obeyed every letter of his order, and then show him the stack of e-mailed rants (which I affectionately call the Book of Crazy) and his failure to pay child support. Unpleasant? Yes. But nothing I couldn't handle.

Use same mental energy for something constructive. I turn the mental power I would have misused worrying to keeping documentation of all of this, while working on my ability to stay calm and nonplussed by these outbursts (which isn't easy). Keeping my side of the street clean isn't always easy, but it always rewards us.

Sometimes I think Dale Carnegie might have been one of us!

I Am Not Demi Moore

Last week, I spoke with the mother of one of my clients, a 15-year-old who got a curfew violation. Client was a freshly-scrubbed, good-girl type of kid, and mom looked like the type of parent who would raise such a child. I asked mom what Client was doing out so late without a parent.

Mom told me while fighting back tears that Client met a 23-year-old male on Myspace who lured her out of the house to meet with him because he "just needed someone to talk to" (mandatory eye roll goes here). Mom wasn't too happy that Client snuck out of the house, but she was understandably elated when the police brought Client home and had 23-y-o in custody. God only knows what could have happened had those officiers not pulled up to a parked pickup truck in the middle of nowhere when they did. 23-y-o now sits in the county jail, and may very well end this year as a registered sex offender.

With us adults, nobody's going to jail - not for going out with someone much older than ourselves, anyway. But we are booking ourselves a whole litany of issues once the age difference gets into the double-digits.

It seems so hip when the celebrities do it, doesn't it? I can't pick up a women's magazine that doesn't laud Demi Moore for hooking up with Ashton Kutcher. But it's important to note that Demi Moore is worth, at last estimate, $50 million dollars. She does not have to go to work everyday. She does not see retirement looming on the horizon and think "Damn - better get to savin' some cash so I don't end up greating people at Walmart!" When she had small children, someone did the unpleasant stuff for her. She's had an estimated $600,000 worth of plastic surgery, and can easily afford to keep going.

But all of us non-celebs deal with reality, and the reality is that it's not always going to be smooth sailing for Older and Younger when they somehow hook up. Here's just a few of the items you have to look forward to:

1) Older is who he is by now. The older we get, the less likely we are to dramatically change our lifestyles. If I'm fifty years old and I'm in debt up to my eyeballs or have a long history of employment or legal problems, that's more than likely how it's going to be, and Younger needs to accept that.

2) Younger can still be anything she wants to be. This is the converse of #1. Younger typically has a world of career and educational opportunities out there. It's difficult for Older to estimate where life may take Younger, and Older needs to accept that.

3) Both need to get clear about having children. Younger and Older should be clear with each other about the concept of having children. When Older is male, this is typically a matter of whether the couple wants children, since men are fertile most of their lives. However, when Older is female, this is a physical issue. Conceiving becomes difficult after 40 (assuming Older is healthy. Smoking, poor diet and other poor health habits make this even more difficult). After age 45, half of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Menopause typically begains at 50. If this couple wants children, they need to save for the estimated $5,000 to $40,000 needed to adopt (and that's per child).

4) Jealousy and insecurity will be a much bigger deal. Older is always going to be insecure about the fact that he's, well, older. Younger needs to get certain phrases out of her vocabulary, such as "for your age" and "back in your day". Youngers should also not bring home things they feel might be helpful to Older, such as wrinkle cream, Viagra, hearing aid batteries, or disposable undergarments. Motive doesn't matter there - that's just an instant arguement.

5) Then there's money. If Older is financially successful, she's going to bankroll Younger to some degree. If she's not, Younger needs to be prepared to support Older through the most expensive years of life: retired from work, but still need to eat and take care of these mounting medical bills.

6) Ewwww..... If the age difference is greater than ten years, people are going to notice, and many will be creeped out by it. Rude and wrong, but true. Both need to prepare themselves emotionally for some social rejection, especially if they are into PDA. Anyone want to see the couple in the picture above get down? I rest my case.

Oh and, in the interest of disclosure, there is a 2.5 year age difference between BF and me. We are both pretty much who we're going to be, we have all the children we want, and we both fear greeting people at Walmart one day.