>Assuming you hadn't had a couple cervezas yourself when you wrote that (or even if you had), here is a straight answer.
>
>Believe it or not, I had a Friday night dinner sans Guinness, so the only thing going through my blood was Ginger Ale. ;)
>
>This isn't just lip service this time. I am already enrolled in an intensive outpatient program that starts the 28th (earliest date available and yes, I will be fine until then) and have a group to attend as well. Am also on a medication and will probably be on another one once I find a doctor, which I don't have now, and see the doc. Anything and everything will be tried. I think getting over my aversion to group therapy was a big step. This is going to be hard at times but it is going to succeed.
>
>I am glad to hear...actually VERY glad to hear you are enrolled in a program. Some weeks you will feel energized, some weeks you will feel like hell, and some weeks you will be annoyed...STICK WITH IT.
>
>You don't seem the type to have a lot of second thoughts. If you do have them about what you said in your message, don't worry about it. As I said, it's undoubtedly what others were thinking, even if it sounded harsh.
>
>No second thoughts at all. I wouldn't have said what I said, had I not cared.
>
>On the surface, it may seem ironic that I'm not religious, and yet in the truest sense of the word, I am PRO-LIFE. My statements are also based on my views about kids. Kids are not owed nearly as much as they think they are, but they do deserve one thing, and that is parents they can count on.
>
>Good luck...

Agreed 100%. I have let them down before with drinking, and let them down big time this time. That can't be undone. All I can control is what happens going forward, and that is what I am working on.

One of the things that was said at the hospital that has stuck in my mind is that although it is important to frankly recognize our shortcomings, it is also important not to lose sight of the good things. The biggest one(s) I have is Allie and Emily. They hate it when I drink (looking forward to putting that in the past tense) but love me and trust me enough that they still want to live with me despite everything. That gives me strength.

Another thing that stuck in my mind was something the social psychologist said: "First comes effort, then motivation." He was urging me to get out and do more and to avoid staying at home alone. (Certainly sound advice). That sounds counter-intuitive because we, or at least I, normally think it would happen the other way around, first motivation / interest and then effort. He said it's important to get involved in things even though some of them will not pan out. Some of them will and then you will be motivated to pursue them. These head doctors, they think backwards in a good way sometimes ;-)

BTW, I was not trying to turn it into a creative writing exercise or whatever you called it in describing some of the people I met. It was just an extremely vivid experience. When you go through something that intense with a small group of people I think it's only natural that it stays in your mind. Believe me, I could have gone on much longer. Then again, the recovery memoir genre is a bit discredited at this point ;-) (James Frey)

One more little thing you may find amusing (or maybe not). In one of the one-on-one information sessions with a nurse I was told that as an attempted suicide I will be unable to license a gun in Illinois. So I guess I won't be able to go shootin' with you, John H, Mike C, and others ;-)

It was an eye-opener to discover that a suicide attempt is treated more or less as a criminal act, at least in Illinois. There are no charges but the treatment is about the same. You do what they say whether you like it or not, you are kept in custody until they let you go, hostility from the police, and so on. In the ER ward I was not even allowed to go to the bathroom without someone watching me. I said to Tricia that I would have been treated the exact same way if I shot the president.

All right, enough babbling. They turned on the spigot and now I need to stem the flow a bit.