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I apologize for posting this entry for #SoCS for 6/13/20, for which Linda provided the prompt of NAIL on Wednesday 6/17/20, however I have been wanting to write this post but I just did not have a chance to do so until now. A lot happened in the last week that has definitely been a great thing. Since losing my job on May 28th I have been utilizing every job site and even stepped out of my box and applied at 7-11 and Circle K.

Long story short I applied to a local 7-11 franchise store and the owner texted me on Wednesday 6/10 and asked me to come in. I went in on Thursday morning 6/11, they spoke to me for five minutes and then handed me a new hire packet which I brought home and filled out. I returned the packet a little later that morning and that afternoon, I was the schedule for Friday from 8 AM – 4 PM. I did my first day of training on Friday and then Friday I was asked to go in for my normal graveyard shift because someone had called in, and I did. I am adjusting to the new work schedule as well as new sleep schedule while still maintaining my normal activities to ensure I do not allow the proverbial nail of drinking to creep into my mind.

As I often write about the fact that I am and will always be an alcoholic. My being an alcoholic is not the nail in my framework or the proverbial coffin. That nail becomes real if I ever begin to think that I have this disease licked or if I ever determine that I drink like a normal person. If I ever pick up that first drink I will truly be putting that nail into my coffin because, while I may have another drunken bender in me – I do not have another recovery in me and I do I believe that the disease of alcohol will kill me before the HIV/AIDS that I have thriving with, not just surviving with for 23 years or anything else that is within my control.

As long as I am doing the right things – talking to my sponsor, attending both face to face with the Goliad Group or the LAMBDA Group here in San Antonio and online meetings of Global Steps Alcoholics Anonymous on In The Rooms, doing service in those groups by chairing meetings – greeting in meetings – and sharing in meetings, continuing in my Catholic faith and asking my Higher Power whom I choose to call God to help me each day JUST FOR TODAY to help keep me sober and to do HIS WILL and not my own, and thanking my Higher Power at the end of the day for doing so – then I will be able to ensure that the proverbial NAIL of alcoholism and taking that first drink will not come.

So today “No Matter What It Takes” I will do it to ensure that I do not put that proverbial NAIL in any aspect of my life. Please enjoy this lyric video of Jeremy Camp’s No Matter What It Takes.

That’s what’s in My Rattled Cage, thanks for stopping by!!