Update

It has been five days since my last narcotic.  I just finished my first night good night's sleep in nearly a week.  When I say good, I mean pain free (without drugs).  

Now what am I supposed to do?

The bed at a detox never appeared, but I got it on medical advice that I was pretty well through it.  Detoxing is a physical process where the body begins to readjust to live without massive chemical influx it has been deluged with for X amount of time.  It is different from treatment or rehab (I learned).

Detoxing is relatively brief compared to the longer hospital stays for treatment.  I have heard some people share about being in their second year of treatment.  I realized I was unclear about that in my last post (as I was in my own head).  

Which brings the fact that there is a lot about this process (I guess I can call it recovery?) that I do not know.  

I found this yesterday, seems apropos:

                                                              N.A. 3rd Step Prayer

Take my will & my life,

Guide me in my recovery,

Show me how to live.

The Moon is Beautiful

4:30 in the morning.  It is nice and cool outside, I can see the quarter moon from my back porch over Georgia Highway 67.

A year after Natasha died, I decided I didn't want to be crazy any longer.  Coincidentally, it was also at 4:30 am that I had this epiphany.

I started going back to Alanon meetings.  At last night's meeting the topic was acceptance.  Halfway through the meeting, I shared that, so far, we had been talking about acceptance in terms of alcohol and the alcoholics in our lives, straight from the first step.  But I was thinking about the Serenity prayer.  In the first third of it, we say God grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.

Acceptance is a gift. And it is a gift that we constantly have to ask God for.  I quit asking after Natasha's death.  It was too painful to revisit that everyday, sometimes many times in one day.  I felt I would be better off just struggling through.  It was not that I thought I could do it better on my own, I just didn't think I could do it at all.

That was kind of like turning up the radio, rolling down the windows, flooring the gas pedal and taking my hands off the steering wheel.  As much fun as it is to do that, it never ends well.

Midnight Salad

At midnight last night, Mercedes, my grand daughter, climbed into bed like a cat; I nearly kicked her in the face to get rid of her.  Since I am a big baby about getting woken up, I decided to the best way to get back to sleep would be a self induced food coma.

Inspired by the salad I had my friend Stacy's house (Stacy does everything wonderfully), the refrigerator was stocked with all sorts of salad goodies, including an avocado, kalamata olives, and some Irish Pub Cheese (a substitute for  the mozzarella balls in olive oil).

Putting about a third of one half of the avocado, about half a dozen olives, several thin slices of cheese that I chopped into bits into a bowl and a handful of romaine lettuce I sprinkled a few drops of lime juice, and olive oil onto my salad.  Lastly, I went to the spice cabinet and added a little salt and some mint flakes (I could not find any oregano or basil, could we be out?!).

A quick toss in the bowl and I dug in.  It was exactly what I wanted, salty, with a little sweet and cool for kicks.  Because avocados are so difficult to keep, we seldom have them and I had forgotten how much I love their nut-like flavor.

Of course the salt and even saltier olives left me craving something sweet-my answer to that was a B & B nightcap.

Sadly, an hour after she woke me up and just as I was finishing typing the above paragraph, Mercedes crawled back into bed with us.

In other news, I have been going back to physical therapy to help manage my pain, plus I have a slew of new equipment to show off, which I plan to write about soon.