2012: What Will it Mean For You

And so a New Year has dawned once again. If Nostradamus had anything to say about it will mark the end of the world, as we know it.  There is always the remote chance that he will have been right for some of us. There are those of us that will cease to exist this 2012, and leave only memories of an existence that might bring sweet tears to our loved ones as they reflect about us. 

As alcoholics we can do something to make sure those tears aren’t bitter. If you’ve stopped drinking you know what I mean. Some of our wreckage will not be forgotten no matter how many acts of contrition or actual grace we’ve accumulated, but we can get a start on forgiveness from those we have harmed no matter how long the list is.

When I think about the benefits of not drinking the old Ben Franklin ledger of plusses and minuses comes to mind for me. The plus of active alcoholism if it has come to that leaves only a solitary reason and that is “taking our comfort” or as some Americans believe it to be an inalienable right mainly because it’s legal and everyone does it. If we just take the time to scribe the reasons not to drink the list will be off the page. It’s the one thing we can control to put down the drink. There is no excuse or extenuating circumstances or unique situation that can keep us from taking back our life it just might make that prediction by Nostradamus something for us only  to muse about.  Some old timers used to say try stopping for 90 days and if it’s no problem for you then by all means keep on tipping your glass and fill your gullet. But if it is as one might suspect 90 days will be too tall an order to stick to because our dependency on alcohol makes it our higher power.