Today I celebrate 1 Year of SOBRIETY!!!
I have done it by working THE PROGRAM of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and remembering that I cannot keep what I do not give away freely!!
I thank my family and friends for their undying support, and my family at my home group the Goliad and Global Steps AAthat happens to meet in the hall of In The Rooms.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
Linda has given us the prompt of “list” for today’s #SoCS.
Enjoy this lyric video of For King and Country’s “Never Give Up”.
Yesterday I celebrated 11 months of SOBRIETY because I have never given up. My last drink was on January 3rd, 2020. I have not done it on my own, it has taken a lot of work with my sponsor, attending/chairing/sharing in face to face meetings at my home group the Goliad Group along with service work as the Group Secretary; attending/chairing/sharing in meetings at my online home group Global Steps Alcoholics Anonymous that just happens to meet in the hall of In The Rooms.
But there is also an important list of 12 everyday things that must happen if I am to remain SOBER!
Enjoy this video of For King and Country’s “Control”.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!
Linda has given us the prompt of “trick” for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SOCS.
I have not written in a while because I have had no free time and I have not been able to carve out any until today!
Since June 23, I have working through Leading Edge Personnel at a great assignment with The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine (UIWSOM). Yesterday afternoon at the end of the day as I was leaving campus for the day I received a call from Leading Edge Personnel to inform me that my assignment with UIWSOM had ended effective immediately. I immediately stopped in my head and said, this has got to be a TRICK! The reason I was given was that they had found another individual to fill the position I was serving in as a Phase II Coordinator for the 4th year medical students.
I didn’t even know that they were looking to replace me, as can happen when you are on an assignment through a temporary agency. I really thought that I was doing a great job, there were no indications that something was afoot.
Here is the great thing, I did not drink over it nor do I intend to. When my Higher Power whom I choose to call God closes a door, He will open another one. I pray very soon.
The other thing I did not do is this. The old alcoholic in me would have shot off a scathing email to the powers that be at UIWSOM deriding all of the things wrong with the institution and the people I worked for and with, and blah blah blah blah. The alcoholic with almost 10 months of recovery simply wrote a very professional email and asked simply – exactly what happened for the powers that be to make the determination that I was no longer a good fit and to end my assignment. We will see if I get a response from one of the 3 people that I sent it to.
So, this morning I did wake up and say, was it a TRICK or a TREAT? I am just going to do what I do best, dust it off and hit the pavement again and find another position. I may not find one that pays what I was making there, but something will come.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by and have a VERY SAFE and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
Linda has provided us with the prompt of container for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday.
There is nothing worse than trying to find lids to the containers in the plastic to go cabinet in the kitchen. Wait, there is something worse, when you specifically buy containers with lids that stack together and your husband refuses to fall in line with that practice.
I cannot tell you how many I say, “Mr. Herrera, I buy these types of containers because of their ability to help save space and to keep the containers and lids together in one simple place. You see on Sundays I cook Sunder dinner and I deliver food to some very special people – my mother in law, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and some other friends of ours.
It is very annoying searching for containers and then not finding the lids because he has put them in a drawer where they don’t belong.
On a different topic, I am getting better a placing certain things that have come up in my recovery into different MENTAL containers, some would say compartments – but aren’t they really the same thing?
For example when the old resentment player decides to suddenly crank up, I shut it off and throw it back into the far reaches of the resentment container in the brain. I have been blessed that over the last 8 months and 22 days I have not had to throw the desire to drink into it’s mental container – because I haven’t had any desire to drink.
What I do have to make sure stays in their respective mental containers are my character defects of impatience, sometimes being impulsive, speeding (for which I just completed my Defensive Driving Course for getting a ticket for going 86 in a 70 on a country road in Eagle Lake, Colorado County, Texas on 9/5/20 when I went to see my family on a spur of the moment trip), finding faults in others that I do not like about myself. I could go on and on with this list.
How do I keep those things where they belong? I wake up every day and thank my Higher Power whom I choose to call God for waking mu ep and not just bringing me to. I ask for His guidance in all that I do by turning everything over to the care of God as I understand him. I make meetings whether online or face to face. I do the best right thing. I do not pick up that first drink. At the end the day I again thank my Higher Power for being my partner in recovery JUST FOR TODAY! I am continuing to work on my 4ht step and I am in constant contact with my sponsor and I have the best support system in the world.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage today, thanks for stopping by.
Today Linda has given us “SONG” as our prompt for #SoCS with the following: “First, find a picture–the closest one to you. Your prompt is the title and/or the lyrics of the first song that comes to mind when you look at the picture.”
This picture hangs above my desk on the left hand wall. It was given to me probably 15 years ago by one of my best friends Martha, she and I have been best friends since we worked together at SITEL Corporation in 1999. It is the first picture I saw as I read the prompt from Linda. The first song I thought of was Send Me An Angel by Real Life from 1983. The video below is from 1989 and the song and video were played widely in 1989 and 1990 when I first moved to San Antonio after being released to a halfway house.
In 1999, who would have thought that indeed I would be sent an angel in the form of my Cruzer. We met through friends in 1997 and then lost touch for a few years. He was going through a tough time in January 2001 when he called 411, you remember information – right, to find my number because he just needed a friend to talk to. It was like we picked up where we never even started or left off – and here we are almost 19 1/2 years later and we are still together.
He has seen me at my best and at my worst and yet he has loved me through it all. I could not ask for a better friend and husband. My Higher Power whom I choose to call God truly did send me an angel!!
Enjoy the music video below from Real Life. That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
This week Jim has given us the prompts of Best/Better/Good/Great for #SLS. So, I have chosen Steven Curtis Chapman’s The Great Adventure. This song is just a constant reminder that if you have faith in a Higher Power, I just happen to call mine God, then you really are on a great adventure.
My great adventure has just surpassed the 6 month mark of SOBRIETY and I am loving this adventure as it is so much more this time. I am seeing things come true that weren’t even close to coming true when I had the previous 2 1/2 years of sobriety before I turned 50 in September of 2016. At that time I had quit doing service work in both my online meetings with Global Steps AA and my face to face meetings with my home group The Goliad Group. I have realized that that was the primary cause of my major relapse and then my continued roller coaster ride over the last 3 1/2 years. I am very proud and blessed to be on this GREAT ADVENTURE of RCOVERY!!
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
Lyrics
Saddle up your horses
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Started out this morning in the usual way
Chasing thoughts inside my head
I thought I had to do today
Another time around the circle
Try to make it better than the last
I opened up the Bible
And I read about me
Said I’d been a prisoner
And God’s Grace had set me free
And somewhere between the pages
It hit me like a lightning bolt
I saw a big frontier in front of me
And I heard somebody say let’s go
Saddle up your horses
We’ve got a trail to blaze
Oh oh oh
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s Amazing grace
Let’s follow our leader into the Glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa
This is the great adventure
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh yeah, yeah
So come on, get ready for the ride of your life
Gonna leave long faced religion
In a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons
Just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for, yeah
Saddle up your horses
We’ve got a trail to blaze
Oh oh oh
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s Amazing grace
Let’s follow our leader into the Glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa
This is the great adventure
We’ll travel on, over mountains so high
We’ll go through valleys below
Still through it all we’ll find that
This is the greatest journey
That the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us far
Beyond our wildest dreams
Saddle up your horses
We’ve got a trail to blaze
Oh oh oh
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s Amazing grace
Saddle up your horses
We’ve got a trail to blaze (we’ve got a trail we’ve got a trail to blaze)
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s Amazing grace
Let’s follow our leader into the Glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa
This is the great adventure
Oh oh oh oh (this is the great adventure)
Oh oh oh oh (this is the great adventure)
Oh oh oh oh (this is the great adventure)
Saddle up, saddle up your horses
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Steven Curtis Chapman / Geoff Moore
As usual I am a bit late for my #1LinerWeds post. Crazy stuff has gone on in the last two weeks. more on that later.
As I approach 6 months of recovery this weekend I know that my Higher Power whom I choose to call God has made All Things New in me!! Enjoy this video of Anthony Evans performing his song.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
This week Linda has given us the prompt of FAN for our #SoCS.
I started writing this post yesterday morning and then my best friend whose mother passed away on Friday called asked if I could come over and handle taking down her brush for the big brush pick-up on Monday 6/8. So of course, I dropped everything and spent almost 9 hours assisting my ride or die.
I am a huge fan of many things. Specific movies to include A Few Good Men, Goodfellas, Casino, A Time to Kill, Steel Magnolias, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, anything with Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. As evidenced by my posts I am a huge fan of many music genres to include country, jazz, contemporary Christian, and anything from the greatest music decade ever – the 1980’s.
I love to read my favorite author is John Grisham and I have read pretty much every book he has written and seen every movie that was made from a book of his.
I am a fan of remaining sober and working my program with my great sponsor and my Higher Power whom I choose to call God along with the assistance of my husband – who yes, I am a huge fan of and my family.
You what I am the biggest fan of? You guessed it my four legged babies. They love me UNCONDITIONALLY and if my husband got as excited about me walking in the door as they all do, that would be icing on the cake. The pictures below were all taken on Thursday evening 6/4/20 which just so happened to be Five months of sobriety for me.
This week Jim has given us the prompt of finding a song that includes a number for #SLS.
In many of my other posts I have written about my strong Catholic Faith along with many other aspects of my personal life. Today I have chosen a song by Jordan Feliz called “180”. It is song about an individual asking for God to assist him in doing a 180 degree turnaround in their life and returning to remain in their faith.
This happens a lot to individuals like myself who suffer from the disease of alcoholism or any other addiction problems. But in order for a person to truly make that 180 degree turnaround they must truly do the work and have faith in a Higher Power that will be there through the good and the bad. I have truly turned my will back over to my Higher Power whom I choose to call God and I am happy that the 180 degree turnaround is happening in me and I am truly loving life and myself today.
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
Today I write this post from my birthplace, Lamar, Missouri. I drove up yesterday so that I could lay flowers at my mother’s grave who passed 22 years ago today on May 10, 1998 which just so happened to be Mother’s Day.
This trip was one I needed to take because I have never been at my mother’s grave alone and so I have never had the chance to have a long conversation with her and tell her that I no longer blame her for all the things that happened to me as I was growing up nor for the choices that I have made as an adult. I have always held resentments towards her and my father because they did not know how to raise or handle a boy. I used to think they never wanted a boy. I now truly believe my parents did the best they could with who they were and what they had.
I currently have a sobriety date of January 4, 2020. I can say that I see a definite change in my attitudes towards my resentments towards my parents, even my resentments towards myself in regards to my struggles with relapses and journeys into recovery from alcoholism and addiction to cocaine. While yes I do have the genetic gene I believe for alcoholism and other addictive behaviors, I am at a point now where I have turned everything over to my Higher Power whom I choose to call God. I am already beginning to see differences in my mental attitudes and my spirituality is just growing even stronger.
As long as I remember daily that I cannot drink like other people and I cannot pick up that first drink ever, then I will also remember that recovery is a JUST FOR TODAY program. I only have to live my life in recovery ONE DAY AT A TIME!! So, I have let go and I am letting God guide me for His will to be done daily and not my own. I am seeing those 9th Step Promises coming true!!
That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!
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My Rattled Cage - What has me rattled today? 