I'm Earla, an alcoholic.

Some days it seems that everything's a challenge. I know in my head that things are as big a challenge as I let them, but telling my heart is another matter sometimes. Just because I'm sober doesn't mean that bad things don't happen. Maybe when I say "bad," I mean more like "blessings in lousy wrappers." As hard as some things are to walk through, I know there's always something to be learned, and more ways for me to grow. I've stood on the mountaintop and thumped my chest in sobriety. I've felt on top of the world ... too much so, I suppose. But life has its way of dealing with me when I think I've got it so good. When I start thinking I have handled all there is to handle, somethin' else will smack me upside my face. I've experienced a lot of "losses" in sobriety, if you want to call it that. My mother passed when I was six years sober. I finally was able to reproduce in sobriety, and I was blessed with a child. I opened ... and closed ... my own business. I've recently lost a loving relationship with a man I had thought was "the one," but I haven't had to drink over it. Not yet, anyway. You see, even the good times are a "challenge" for me. If I stray too far from my Creator, I leave myself open, and find myself once again powerless over the simplest things. When I embrace my Creator and the people in these rooms, I know I'll be all right. I can't handle the things life dishes out totally on my own. I've also had a lot of physical trauma in sobriety, and I never knew my capacity for physical pain, because I never let myself feel any when I was an active alcoholic. I was always afraid of pain. I know today that pain ... be it physical, mental, or emotional ... will not kill me. To feel it, and to even sometimes embrace it, and let it talk to me. It's only a symptom of what I need to address. Once I get through any bad situation, I can be grateful that I felt the pain. It let me know that something was wrong. But when I'm in the middle of it, it can be rough. That's when I have to use the comfort of prayer, and let you folks embrace me. Sometimes I can be stubborn though, and I get in my own way.

Thanks for being here and contributing to my sobriety.