i'm coming out

This is a tough one, boys.

It's taken me 17 years to get to this point.

It's scary.  But it's important.  It's a matter of life and death.

My big time party life fantasy has crashed and burned with the all too real realization that I'm a big time drunk.

Oh yeah.

I have been, as we say in Kentucky, whooped.

I've been sober precisely 18 days and 2.5 hours. 

Today was a rough day.

That's what made me finally decide to go public on my blog.

I've admitted to myself that I am powerless over alcohol, and man, has my life become unmanageable!

The trick is, though, alcoholism is a soul disease, and it festers and metastasizes in secrecy, in shame, in shadow.

So, I'm bringing my secret to light, here in a semi-anonymous forum.

This blog has always been the place where I explore what I'm feeling, where I reflect on life, and where I try to put the day-to-day craziness into some sort of context.  Now there's just a little more at stake. 

Don't worry--I plan to keep it as real and racy as always. 

I'm not doing this to preach or moralize (as if!). 

As much as I appreciate and adore my readers, this is something I'm doing for me--for my sanity, for my survival.

So I've added a new category: "1 Day at a Time".  That's where I'll muse and confuse on this strange road trip of sobriety. 

I've added an icon of the chip I got at my first meeting, the twelve steps, and the serenity prayer.  Those are for me, too.  Hopefully they won't turn you off, but if they do, there are lots of other blogs in the cyberverse...

And for those of you readers out there who can enjoy the luxury of a nice stiff drink without the need to self-destruct, I salute you.  Rock on, and I hope you'll still find stuff on this blog to keep your interest.

It's a brave new world, boys.

So in the immortal words of our beloved Bette, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night..."

Honesty, serenity, and hope, folks--24 hours at a time.