IT IS CHRISTMAS AND I'M STONE COLD SOBER

PRETTY AMAZING!  I won't have a drop of alcohol all day.  Amazing!  In fact I have had very little alcohol since February of 2010.  Perhaps 5 or six ounces over all that time.  It is something that I never thought I could stop doing.  There are some other things that I  have taken out of my life, but I never wanted to even think about stopping my alcohol intake.  But I did it.  I guess that proves that all those people who accused me of being an alcoholic were wrong.  I haven't even gone to a single meeting.  Through all my protestations that I am not an alcoholic, it took a nearly lethal blow to my physical well being to make me quit.  No, I take that back.  I didn't quit.  God kicked it out of me.  Now when He gets involved, Paul backs off.  I mean, I don't want to have to endure what ol' Jonah went through.  Three days in a whale's belly?  It was bad enough being nearly five days in a hospital.  At least you get out of the hospital clean and feeling fresh, even though if you're like me, you can't walk.  But at least you're not swimming in a bunch of whale vomit.
So here I am with the Baby Jesus, thanking Him for saving my $%@**& and still wondering how He did it.  I mean, I don't think that there has been a day since I was about 19 or 20 that I didn't have at least one sip (draught?) of some alcohol.  I even always had a bottle even when I was in the seminary in Attleboro.  I used to keep my Canadian Club in a shampoo bottle...yup, right out in the open.  A friend of mine from Van Buren, Maine was my drinking buddy.  2 crazy hockey players who got a kick out of breaking the rules and getting away with it right across the hall from the Big Boss's office.  Man, that was fun.  Now, it's all water.  Gotta keep dem kidneys well irrigated, says the doc.  It's all well and good, but let me tell you, I still remember how much better it was irrigating my kidney's with ethanol than it is with water.  It makes me sad to see that they are now digging into the whiskey stash to run internal combustion engines.  Yikes, what a waste!  But it's probably better that way.  What the heck, it takes an awful lot of that stuff to get a car feeling whoopie.  But just to be safe, if it gets too common, I'll just have to send the Voice from the Kitchen to refuel the family wheels.  After a while, I'm sure that she'll turn to dissing the car for being an alcoholic.  So much for domestic tranquility!
By the bye, did you notice that today is the first full month of this insanity?