That's My Story And I'm Sticking To It!

I want you to know I still have a ton of respect for what the church does do. The only people I really have a problem with are the people that think that you can only get help in the church and that people who are non church members and in some cases not even Christians, have nothing to offer. God speaks to me, sometimes, even through non-Christians. My sponsor is a Christian and I find most in my outside recovery groups are, but not all, and that's okay. Not my job to tell anyone else what to believe.  Personally, I am just in a place right now where I am not comfortable around non-alcoholics. I find that it isn't true that I have much in common with them. I definitely think differently. I've proven it by the way I am able, even as what they call a high bottom drunk, to shock non-alcoholics with my stories and even my just general thinking, which only made me feel more isolated and alone. They told me in my church groups, if I shared honestly I would find that I wasn't all that different from other people and what I found was exactly the opposite. I found myself more isolated and alone, the more I shared and so found it safer not to share. If I can't have real relationships there, I don't see any point in going, so I don't. That is all. If I thought they could understand me at all I would go, but they can't and I don't diss them for that. The one's that really bug me are the ones that think  they know all about alcoholism and have never studied the disease of alcoholism and treat it the same as any other addiction, which by the way, everyone has. Everyone has an unhealthy coping mechanism of some type unless they are perfect, which I only know One who holds that title and I have not received nail holes and I haven't met anyone else who has them either, besides Jesus. I have come to firmly believe that I did not choose this disease. It chose me. I was born with it and alcohol had a very different affect on me than it does others. From the very first drink. Other people drink and do not become alcoholics because they don't feel the way I felt when they drink. Even my husband admitted the one time he got drunk that he didn't see what I got out of it. He didn't feel any different. It did nothing for him. It isn't even  that I just felt numb. I felt awesome! I felt like I could do anything and do it way better drunk than I ever could sober. All the insecurity that I feel goes away when I drink. I know lots of other people who suffer from insecurity and other emotional issues that alcohol just did not have that affect on. I loved it. It just didn't love me. I may have felt amazing on the inside, but my behavior was horrible, and I never want to wake up again the next morning having no idea why everyone's mad at me, cause I have no idea what I did the night before! I didn't always blackout, but when I did, it was awful! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Still On The Road To Recovery

Hi there! No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth! Far from it! I now have close to 6 months sober and have done it all without the help of the church! (Gasp! How dare I suggest they don't have all the answers!!!!) In fact, I have recently quit going to church at all. My meetings are my church! Unbiblical you say? Really? Let's look at the record. Without even looking I know the verse you're going to quote. It's the one that says to not quit meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. I'm not. In fact, I meet with other believers every single day, not just a couple of times a week. We go there for fellowship, which I get in my meetings. We go there to serve God, which I also do in my recovery groups. I chair meetings, occasionally help with coffee and many other little things like turning off lights and locking doors. Also, I reach out to newcomers and listen to others who just need someone to talk to. I take time out of my day to go places with friends in recovery who just want to be with a friend. That sounds like service to God to me. And that's in addition to continuing to raise a family. Phew! No wonder, I find so little time to blog...and facebook and tweet, etc., etc. I often find myself in conversations with people outside of meetings about the bible. One even mentioned to me the other day that he thought of me as he was reading John chapter 4, cause I had mentioned it's one of my favorite stories in the bible. Go ahead and look it up! I dare you! It's the woman at the well for those who are familiar. Who else, but Jesus, could tell a sinner everything she ever did and leave her completely unashamed?! I've never met one. If you have, let me know, cause only Jesus has ever done that for me. The cops sure didn't. The school didn't when I'd get in trouble and neither did the church. Only Jesus Himself could point out the truth to me and leave me unashamed. Sometimes someone else had to point out my faults to me before I could see them, but I always felt that overwhelming shame when it was brought to my attention. Only when I then brought it to Jesus, could I lose the shame I felt. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you either need to read it again or for the first time! And if you've never experienced the way Jesus can bring your failures to the light and still leave you feeling completely unashamed just ask Him to show Himself to you and hang onto your seat, cause if you're sincere, He WILL show up! I guarantee it! And yes, I do have people in my life who point out my faults. I do have accountability. And really, that's a choice each and every individual has to make for themselves, in or out of church. If you don't want to allow people to get close enough to you to really know you well enough to know when you're off track, you're not going to! Only person who can make that decision for you is YOU! I have what we call, in 12 step programs, a sponsor, which is sort of like a mentor, only her main job is to lead me through the 12 steps, which if you don't know those, you can look them up online, too, I'm sure. They are the greatest way I have ever found to learn to trust God and clean house! That's the process I am in right now and it's not easy. I have completed my 4th step, but have yet to complete my 5th. I have not been real good at staying in touch with my sponsor the last couple of weeks, I must confess. There are a couple of reasons for that. I have gotten a little distracted from my program, but not my fellowship and service work, thankfully. Those reasons are a little too personal to share with you right now, but my closest friends in my recovery groups know where I am and what's going on. I just wanted to check in with all of you and let you know a little of where I'm at. I'm going to quote another friend, because I just can't think of better words, "Thanks for tolerating me while I grow up."

Me & God: Getting Real!

My posts will be very short. More like facebook posts than blog posts for a while, because I have to type them on an iPad, which is a pain. Our computers both croaked shortly after moving here. Finally tired of Windows problems Josh is finally going to buy us a Macintosh! Also, after noticing that our iPhones & iPad have survived lots of problems without any costly fixes thru many costly fixes on our Windows based computers! So come March when we get our taxes back, Apple.....we're all yours!!!!!!No more Windows in this house! We're sold!!!!!

You'll also notice a lot more txt-like typing bc of the pain of not having a real keyboard, so those of you who enjoyed my "nearly perfect grammar & spelling", sorry! You'll have to bear with me for a couple of months!

Some of you may know I was supposed to go to inpatient treatment this month for alcoholism as I have been unable to stay sober for more than 82 days since moving to Spokane, which I believe to have more to do with the progression of this disease than the move. I had been drinking in Moscow almost every day for a year & had even managed to lie to myself about it! Cause cough syrup isn't really alcohol, right?! Yeah, right! 10% alcohol content, actually! Way more than even beer!!! I had not fully accepted that I was an alcoholic at the time I got a bad cold & took Cough syrup for several days. It triggered the allergy & obsession that alcoholics have & I couldn't stop & eventually needed more & more. Could not understand why I suddenly wanted so badly to drink. It wasn't until faced with the hopelessness of having to wait even longer to get help for my depression & abuse issues that I gave into the desire & drank "real" alcohol & that's when I discovered I'd been drinking all along! I knew then I had this disease, not just a tendency to like to drink to drunkenness occasionally, when others were doing it. I've been turned down by the state for alcohol treatment for 2 reasons, either of which would disqualify me by themselves. 1) I have kids at home, 2) We have income. Didn't matter how much that income was. The state won't pay for you to get help if there's any money at all coming into the home. & yes, you did hear that correctly, they wouldn't have helped if we were both unemployed, because we have kids at home. I know! You'd think they'd want to help even more with kids in the home. It's alright. I'm sure God has a plan, even if it is to get me to talk to Him more & to get away from Christian fundamentalism which was only destroying any hope for me to have an honest & true relationship with God!

Okay, so this didn't end up being that short, but this is a pain, so I probably won't do this much!:)

Counseling and How I Love Spokane (Or should I say shopping?)

Just so you all know I am also seeing a professional Christian Counselor, who I am seeing today! I really love living in Spokane and cannot wait until I have time and have the money to go to some of the great Christian conferences and CONCERTS they have here! I was born to live in the city, I swear it!!! Why I was born to a farm family I will never know, but I love all the PEOPLE in the city! Not to mention the malls, and little shops, and thrift stores, galore! I swear Spokane has more thrift stores than I've ever seen in my life!! Not that I've been able to take advantage of it much. Moving and all the extra expenses of living here have left us with so little money, I haven't even been able to shop at thrift stores!!! Yikes!!! That, and, of course, for a time Josh took away my debit card. I also didn't have a checkbook or cash or anything. I mean, I could have gone to the bank to get money, but I would have really had to go out of my way to defy him to do that. He did that to keep a roof over our heads instead of letting me drink us out of a home!!!! Anyway, I'm looking forward to the shopping when we have some money for such nonsense! We're spending the money for counseling even though we don't have it. They've given us a great deal, but it's still hard. ANY amount of money would be hard at this point, but they can't afford to see me for free. I'm grateful for it anyway, and AM NOT going to throw it all away again with another drink...or 10...or 20...or 50,,,or....You get the idea. Anyway, hope you all have a great Monday!!!

And obviously I've had my coffee since earlier :)

Love,
Shellie

Monday Morning

Ugh! It's Monday morning and I have to get the kids up in just a few minutes! They have something here in Spokane called "late start day" and you would think it would be on Monday or at least Friday! No! Of course not!!! That would be too logical! It's on Thursday! They start school on those days a half hour later than on the other days. That morning is a welcome blessing by the end of the week, but it's followed by one more normal day before the weekend. Sort of crazy if you ask me! Can you tell it's early in the morning? For those of you who know me well, you know I'm NOT a morning person!!! When I've been drinking Vodka really helped, but I don't do that anymore. At least not today. And for 40 days in a row now. I need to be grateful! Gratitude is a very important part of my program, so I'll think of some things to be grateful for....after I've had some coffee. There's something to be grateful for. COFFEE! And another day of sobriety! Thanks for indulging me for a moment! I'm going to go get kids up now!

They Didn't Turn My Internet Off!!!!

Ya'll, they still haven't turned off my internet!!! Eeeeekkkk! This addict is sooooooooo happy!!!! Yay! And sick! Miserable sick! So, I went shopping today and thanks to the Big Mama blog and her "Fashion Friday" posts I feel like I really know what's in style, so I wasn't totally shocked by what I found at the mall. Usually, whatever is the new trend makes me go, eeeewww, do I have to wear that, when I get to the mall finally after being holed up most of the winter, in the springtime, but not this year!!! Thank you, Melanie!!!! Never met you in person, but I sure hope to someday! Almost got to meet you in Houston, but nope. Didn't happen this year! Maybe next time! But I got a dress with this diagonal black and white stripes that I am going to look so great in tomorrow night, IF I can find my nylons, dress shoes (either white or black, either one works!At least I got that to work with!), makeup, jewelry and hair stuff, if needed. My hair generally looks good as is anyway...I have awesome hair, so that's good!! In all of this mess, I have to find all of that and we are doing a ton more cleaning and packing tomorrow and so we have to get up and bust a move and be done by 2, so I can get a shower and get all gussied up, get the kids to wherever they need to go, which we've only got two of them figured out so far! It's a good thing they didn't get around to shutting off our internet today, because that is the only communication Jeremiah has with the Couch family, our pastor's family. He's best friends with their boy, Caleb, so it's good that he still can communicate with Caleb that way, so we can make sure he gets where he needs to go in time. Angela, we have to get to her friend, Lucy's house before 3, and we have to be out of here by 3! We have no idea what we're going to do with Chloe! The only friend of hers, who's parents I know, is not available this weekend, Jeni's daughter's sick, so she can't stay there! I'm hoping maybe the Couch's (grammar? Not sure how that works?) can take one more kid. Seems she'd blend right in and probably play with their 6 year old, but that's why I'm having Jeremiah talking to Caleb online! Why in the world do we not have their phone number? I have no idea! I really hate it when I talk to myself on here, but hey, this is what I do in my head all day long, so welcome to Shellie Paparazzo's brain:) I promise I won't let you in too far. It gets pretty scary in here sometimes, as you know. I really haven't let you in on the really bad stuff! I know! You're scared! Me, too!!!! Believe me! I told you, I hardly sleep. Now you know why :) Okay, but seriously, I don't know how I'm going to box everything up, and THEN get beautiful to go to this fancy dinner thing in SPOKANE!!!! Really?!!! Couldn't they have waited a week?!! Just for us?!!!! So, we have to leave by 3...come to think of it, I should probably start getting ready at 1;30! Yikes! This is insane!!!And I still don't know if my youngest will have anyone to stay with!!! Double yikes!!! So, we'll get back, probably around midnight, if not later! Then, get up Sunday morning to get ready for church, go to church, come home, load up the moving truck, and finish cleaning the house and go to the hotel!!! Then, get up Monday morning, do some last minute errands we forgot to take care of and drive to Spokane to unload and get moved in and hopefully start getting kids registered for school and what not. So insane!!! And, ya'll, I do have my kids cold and it's awful! I just want to sleep! Is that too much to ask?! Apparently, it is!! I'm dying here! Please pray for me and my family and that we won't kill each other, and by that I mean, that I won't kill anyone, because I don't think they will, although, with Angela in the mix that's debatable, and oh, yeah, Jeremiah has his moments, and so does Chloe, and oh, boy!!! Does Josh ever have his moments!!! I know he won't mind me saying so. He knows it, I know it, everyone who knows him knows it, so it's all good. So, pray for us. This is going to be crazy and stressful and hopefully God will give us lots of peace and supernatural strength and energy for the task ahead...and some good cough medicine that doesn't knock you out might help, too! Don't think I have any of that around here. Might have to work on that! Bye for now!

Goodbye,Moscow! We'll Soon Be Saying Helllllllooooo Spokane!!!

Well, I thought I'd say goodbye for a few days. I'm going to miss all of you and just miss blogging! I love it! But I need to get offline and get down to business taking care of all of the things I should have been doing all week!!! They're turning my internet off....Ummmm...well, today now. I'm not sure when, but we have an appointment to get our internet hooked up in Spokane on the 13th, so it should only be a short time, but I've never done this moving thing before with an entire family moving out of a house, so I can't predict when I'll actually get back on here. I'll try to take lots of pictures to show you some of the things that will be part of this experience. Maybe even some pictures with some of my favorite people that I'm going to miss so much here in Moscow! Some are coming to help us move, so that'll be great! I know of at least one family that will be here and I understand Josh's brother-in-law, Danny, will be here helping for sure, and I have no idea who from Real Life will show up, but it should be exciting! Goodbye until at least Tuesday most likely!