Celebrating new changes...

(Photo:  LTT - Seattle Japanese Garden)

"Tranquility is not weakness;
from tranquility emerges power and strength."
- Unknown
__________________

This blog entry is dedicated to my mother, Betty Tisdale
and my brother, Patrick Tisdale, for believing in me
and loving me, unconditionally.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
__________________

Oh dear...it has been nearly a year since my last entry, October 18th, 2013! 

So much has happened since then and once again, I don't know where to begin.  Sigh.  And with a deep breath, here goes...!

I glanced over a number of the entries that I have here and realized that a lot of them were depressing but were real...shared by my raw feelings.  I am glad to share that this entry will be more upbeat.

Firstly, I just recently celebrated *5 years* of sobriety on October 6th, 2014!  I am both proud and in awe to have accomplished this milestone.  And to be honest, I can't believe that it has been 5 years already. 

I can remember clearly of my humble beginning of getting sober.  It was really tough and often times it was almost too much to handle.  The days of attending outpatient therapy, court ordered AA meetings and everything that was related to my DUI (driving under the influence) case seem so far yet it feels like it only happened yesterday. 

I thought it was never going to be over and many times wanted to give up.  But, I got through it all and came out a stronger person.  And a wonderful thing happened!  I started having confidence in myself that was severely lacking throughout my life. 

One of the many things I learned all along in this new journey was to let go of the past and to move forward with my head held up high.  I stumbled many times but kept getting up instead of falling altogether.  I let go of my anger towards life and stopped blaming...finally. 

My success in staying sober has A LOT to do with my support team, starting with my wonderful and caring 92 year old mother and dear brother, Patrick,who BOTH believed in me and were my staunch supporters from the very beginning.  And I owe a lot to my loving husband, Damon, my family and friends as well.  Without them and my true desire to stay sober, I would not be where I am now...happier and sober!

Secondly, my husband and I are empty nesters!  At first, it was hard to believe that our children are now adults.  Our minds are still reeling in on this change...having the house to ourselves.  I really REALLY miss Jack and his friends coming and going through our house daily.  They were so much fun!  Alas, it is time for new changes.  And we are now accepting this and embrace it wholeheartedly!

With being new empty nesters, I have to say that I have not had much time to really dwell on the fact that both of our children are out of the house attending colleges, Amanda, a senior and Jack just entering as a freshman!  Oh MY how time flies!

Fortunately, I have been keeping busy with helping to care for my mother; getting this house organized; enjoying my photography (BIG time therapy - wink!);  being involved in a great page called 'Buy Nothing Shoreline (a community page that members gift each other items for free, requests to borrow or to simply be there for each other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/396681487124982/)
and very busy with my Secret Shoreline community page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secret-Shoreline/336141008522.  Staying busy like this truly keeps me from being complacent which is easy to do and would easily lead me to go back to drinking.  And now being empty nesters this would have been a golden opportunity to allow me to be complacent...a dangerous trigger.  But, I have chosen to be busy and allowing myself to once in awhile say "No" which was something that I did not do well in the past.

And the icing of the cake of all these new and great changes through my sobriety is that  I have been blessed with an invitation on October 15th to be a guest speaker to the Intensive Outpatient Therapy (IOP) group at the Center for Human Services here in Shoreline, Washington. I am a proud 2012 alumni of this group.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to give my talk...and cannot  wait to share with this group that it can be done.  You truly have to have faith; find your inner strength and have a DAMNED good support group of professionals, family and friends whom you can trust to be honest with you, support you and love you, unconditionally.

I know that I could have easily continued the path I was on throughout my blog here of feeling sorry for myself and still blaming (even though in some entries I claimed I stopped when many times I did fall back into blaming) so many people and events over and over.  Instead, since  I was given another chance at life, I can now give back to both my family...and to my community by being accountable and responsible through my Facebook community page, Secret Shoreline. 

I am now more at peace with myself than I have ever been.  And it feels absolutely GREAT!

I want to stress to those who are struggling with the demon of alcoholism or any addiction, there is hope.  I didn't believe that when I was getting sober in October 2009 but over time, life has gently and patiently shown me that it is my friend not my enemy. 

Two things I had to do to move forward with my life in order to get better was to accept that I have a problem with drinking and to start forgiving myself for the emotional and mental damage that I inflicted on my family and dear friends.  It was then that I felt a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  I could finally hold my head up high.  No longer is there a need to dwell on looking back but I now have a desire to move forward.

Life is too short.  Life is precious.  AND so are you.

People have asked me many times, "Lien, HOW do you do it?  How do you not want to drink?  It's been 5 years, don't you think you can drink now?" 

I love telling them that simply, "I don't ever want to go back to where I was 5 years ago!"  With that said, I want to share this song (dedicated to my addiction) which is in one of my earlier entries and is dear to my heart because life is so much better!  And just like the song title says, "Better in Time" (Leona Lewis), I ask you to please let time be on your side because life does get better and so will you.

With much love -

Lien

Better in Time - Leona Lewis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0L4EJqPLjk