Family and Friends

Me and my beautiful wife Charity, my soul mate

My loving Children, Noah in front, Mia the tall girl,

Rachel beside of Mia, and baby Wyatt

Noah and the girls having summer fun

My mom and I, the lady that has been there

for me since day 1

My father and Wyatt. The man I have always

looked up to whether he knew it or not

My sister Beth, her husband Jarrod (my sister

couldn't have found a better man)

and my niece and nephew

Alex and Julia. I love my sister

more than she will ever know even though

I drove her crazy when we were young

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, more like

brother and sister. I couldn't find a pic of their

beautiful boys, my nephews,  Dane and Renick but I will

and put their picture on here later.



For today's blog I thought I would focus on why I need sobriety.  My family means more to me than they will ever know.  I don't ever want my family to see me as the drunk of the family, just the recovered alcoholic of the family...the family member that beat his demons.  I have many more family members that I would love to put on here but it would take pages and pages, I love them too.  Friends...I can't say enough about my real friends, again if I put their pictures on here I would be uploading for days.  I am blessed to have each and everyone of them.

Family and friends are what this fight is all about.  I am getting sober for myself but it is so I will not lose any of the people that are near and dear to me because of my alcoholism.  The sad thing is, that in most of these pictures, in the back of my head I was thinking about when I would get another drink.  I never want that to be in the back of my head again.  It is right now, but I fight it off minute to minute and keep telling myself that I am going to win and the cravings will eventually leave.

I have received some very inspiring and encouraging emails this weekend which made my 3 day stretch at work much easier to endure.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, from everyone of you. All of you know who you are. Some of them were surprising and helped me to see that I am definitely not the only one having to struggle with addiction.  Daily I receive emails, texts, and phone calls from family and friends that are just checking on me.  They are all healing!

I will never mention names on here, but I had someone approach me this weekend and tell me they had a alcohol problem and had heard I was trying to get sober and wanted to know how to start toward their sobriety.  I talked to this person for quiet some time.  I felt really good after that talk, maybe, just maybe, getting the chance to help someone with their addiction too.  It made the rest of my night much easier. 

When Charity and I got home from work Sunday morning there was a book sitting beside our front door.  The book is called 'Choosing Life' At first we had no idea where it came from. Later that day I got a email from a family member that lost her husband to cancer last year.  She said this was his favorite book and he read from it many many times.  He had also overcome addiction in the past and she felt he would have wanted me to have this book. Thank you so much, you know who you are.  This was very special to me.

Also this weekend a dear friend bought me a book and dropped it off at work.  The book is called 'Never Give Up'. I have only got a chapter into it but it is very inspiring.  Thank you friend!!

I am still reading 'The Purpose Driven Life' with a close friend.  I have been inspired by this book and sharing my thoughts with my close friend.  As you see I have a lot of reading to do but you know what, this keeps my mind occupied and off of alcohol. 

So in short, everyone that has contacted me, given me something, etc. have given me extra drive to beat this. Thank you all so much. To my family and friends, I love you so very much. Keep me in your prayers still because I need it terribly.

I was supposed to go to AA tonight and unforeseen matters kept this from happening.  We are going to go though.  Tomorrow night I am going to AA with someone I have called a friend and worked around for many years.  Again, you know who you are and I can't express the appreciation for you reaching out to me.

I hope nobody gets too tired of reading my blog because it is great therapy for me.  Until next time.....

Chris