[Tommi]

Originally Posted by StillettoDoll

Gray's First Sober Year

by William Notter




This new life is better
than a dozen beer-joint romances
or a hundred drunks at fishing camp.
My habit now is not drinking,
and waking up where I belong.
I can see colors again,
and I don't feel like a turd in the punchbowl
whenever I go around people.

I'll mow the weeds for Sharon
and almost enjoy it. She's even given up
checking my breath whenever I come home.
I went shopping for our anniversary
and wound up crying in the store,
but not the kind of tears you cry
when your wife catches you lying in the shed
with your pistol jabbed up in your mouth
and vodka running out your nose.

The only thing she could think to do
was check me into another detox,
and this time it finally took.
This year has made me different—
vodka could never do that for long.
Some days when I wake up early
and listen to Sharon lying there breathing,
it feels like somebody snuck in while we slept
and changed our sheets.

Great poem..and hello. I saw this on TV last week, and cried, and laughed and cried. Our stories may be different, our sobriety and relationships too, but damn, that One Day at a Time, is oh so true for those of us on either side of the bottle, medicine chest, etc. . i saw my Mom in it, and I saw the little me, and the Big me.


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7lP_wxoSmY"]YouTube - ‪When a man loves a woman trailer‬‏[/nomedia]. If you haven't seen it I hope you do. IT reminded me of so many things. My addictive personality STILL rages on after so many years of being clean and sober.
Thanks for keeping the light on.