Progress

Two of my cats just wanted to say hello to you today. They were both born on the last night I ever got drunk.
They got a chance at life.
I got a second chance.

todAAy i AAm grAAteful & thAAnkful

that I am sober today and had no hangover from drinking when I woke up

that I got to listen to 6 well-qualified, well-spoken drunks tell their stories of Experience, Strength and Hope over the past 4 days at the Houston Roundup 2006. I heard people talk of their desperation to get sober as they realized their total lack of power in their ability to stay stopped with drinking. More importantly, I heard them speak of the solution; a solution that I am very familiar with. I listened to tales of beginning a partnership with a Higher Power, a partnership that can lead to recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.
The necessary ingredients are Honesty, Open-Mindedness and Willingness.

that I heard speakers talk with humor of their absolute, incomprehensible demoralization; told in such ways that even I could understand and feel. I heard stories of people who should, by all rights, be dead or be in prison for life, yet here they were in Houston, speaking to a group of people in recovery. "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

that I got to meet several people in recovery from around the country these past 4 days

that my duties as secretary of the committee are finished except for a final get-together early next year

that I heard a few guys talk about getting nothing out of attending the Roundup which reminded me -- of me! I felt the same way after my first AA convention. That Too Has Passed.

to be volunteered to chair the Sunday Evening Group @ Lambda for December
(this includes New Year's Eve)

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
-Chinese Proverb