Kate Loving Shenk

After those years of blackout alcoholic drinking, I got a GED and went back to school, got nursing degrees, and thought I was keeping my drinking under control, the great alcoholic delusion.

But the truth of it was, I was a binge drinker and suffered from 4-6 drunks every year with maintenance drinking in between for 30 years.

I put the cork back in the bottle for 6-9 months at a time, but always returned to my drinking behaviors, each time a little closer to self-destructive consequences.

I never got a DUI and was never arrested for any other reason because of alcohol, but plenty of my alcoholic friends were.

One day I knew I had enough and found the answers as to how to stay sober, one day at a time.

Finally, I have reached a level of emotional sobriety that Bill W. discusses in his wonderful essay entitled “Emotional Sobriety,” which says quite simply that dependence on people, places or things is not the way of an alcoholic who Truly is in recovery.

This is a very important ingredient of my sobriety today.

Kate L. S.
02/02/2002

This lens was awarded a Purple Star Yesterday. Please in-Joy–and save a life, today!