November 28, 2025

 It's November 28th. I make two separate blog posts each morning. Sometimes, the message in each overlaps. Oh well. The non profit organization we were involved with was actually incorporated on November 28, 2012, so that was 13 years ago. Time flies. Our original intent was to open a transition house for men in recovery from alcohol and drugs, but we later altered our mission statement and became a ommunity outreach for persons in recovery from alcohol, drugs and/or homelessness. We did some good things over the years. It was my chance to give a little back to the communities I took so much from when drinking.

I was at an AA meeting last night (oh crap I broke my anonymity again) and one of the topics for discussion was remembering what it was like. On Sunday, I will have 28 years of sobriety. That's a few twenty-four hours since I had my last drink, but I still remember what that was like and I still remember the unmanageability my powerlessness over alcohol brought me. Being homeless in the winter, sleeping under the bridge an hour at a time, because if you slept longer than that, you might freeze to death. I spent a lot of time walking from one tim hortons to another, sitting inside, taking an hour to drink my coffee.

Yesterday, I put up the xmas lights on my deck. The deck that's attached to my home, the one that's bought and paid for, the one on Mulgrave Lane actually. I got the home because I'm sober. But, just because I stopped drinking, a genie did not materialize and say here are the keys to your brand new home! But, being sober taught me how to get and keep a job, how to pay bills, how to take responsibility for my actions. It's not a mansion, it's just a little trailer made for the two of us.

But it beats sleeping in a snowbank with a rock for a pillow and a newspaper for a blanket.