THANK YOU, Carl.  This needs to go far and wide, to every friend and friends of friends!

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Honoring Victims/Survivors

MADD recognizes its fundamental responsibility to give a voice to victims who have been affected by the violent crime of drunk driving - both to acknowledge the reality of their losses and to bring that reality to a society numbed by statistics. Learn about people whose lives have been changed forever as a result of impaired driving, and how they have overcome their losses. More...

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Ways Bartenders Can Prevent Drunk Driving

Alcohol awareness - What can you do as a bartender? It is a serious problem...we are involved...we CAN do something about it.

http://www.extremebartending.com/drinking_and_driving.html

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Story by David Hafetz
Photography by Rodolfo Gonzalez

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Children always look. They always turn around to look.

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Loving hugs to you my dear friend. Each day should be a celebration for you!

Each day so many others like this beautiful girl go through a similar tragedy and lives are destroyed... forever. She has a very special dad who walks by her side. Thank God. He knows her beautiful spirit. That will never change.

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Carl ~ I read the "Alcohol Always Lied to Me" again. It really is a powerful reading! So well done.

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World's Largest Youth Alcohol Conference Charts Course To Prevent No. 1 Teen Risk

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 22 Aug 2006 - 0:00am (PDT)

Many still believe that underage drinking is an inevitable rite-of-passage for teenagers. But 1,500 law enforcers, community advocates, health officials and teens from across the country gather this week (Aug. 24-26) to promote successes in preventing this public health threat that kills 6.5 times more kids than all illegal drugs combined and costs the nation $62 billion a year.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=50122&nfid=nl

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Just makes me so dang sad! Nothing to eat all day except one little drinky poo... "onest occifer I'm not under the affluence of incolhol like most thinkle peep I am..."

Sheesh!! She may be an heiress in a wheelchair if she's not careful... or pay dearly in many ways for putting someone else in a wheelchair. ARGGG!!

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Carl ~ I'm so glad that you started this thread. Thank you! This young woman's story is horrendous, and if just one person comes across it and it affects him/her enough so they don't drink and drive, then you've made a huge difference! 

I sometimes come here too and try to fathom what she and her family are going through. I also like to say a prayer for them. One moment you have a beautiful daughter with a whole life ahead of her, and the next you are in an unimagineable nightmare for the rest of your lives.

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 me

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Thank you so much, Carl! I have so many emotions all going through me at the same time as I read the things you posted, and looked at your pictures. The poem the mother left her son, and the MIRROR poem touch me deeply.

I wish I could mail the MIRROR poem to some people I think need to look at themselves closely. One would be sent to the woman who has put me on sick-leave because of her bullying and wanting to have control of another's soul. But I'd also like to send it to those I feel who are good people because it has a lot of meaning there too. So, you would be one I would send it to.

I'm glad you got to spend time and be with others on Sept. 10, and hopefully on Sept. 11th. I think people can get to feel very close to one another in a group where they've shared so much of themselves.

I love you, my friend. The MIRROR poem has special meaning to me in my life right now.

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well was just thinking that im going to a meeting n a a min. i wonder how many ppl ill pass up drinking n driving.

my worst day sober is better then my best day drunk

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Feeling apart from the action and always looking on; wanting attention, and yet afraid of being noticed; no doubt these are familiar memories to most of us. We may still struggle with our self-perception, but we can celebrate that we no longer drown our moods. Connecting with the people next to us, though difficult, is no longer impossible when we rely on the program.

There is a way to be a part of the action, a way that never fails. It takes only a small effort, really. We can simply look, with love, at someone nearby today and extend our hearts in honest attention. When we make someone else feel special, we'll become special too.

Recovery can help each of us move beyond the boundaries of our own ego. Trusting that our lives are in the loving care of God, however we understand God, relieves us of the need for self-centeredness. We can let go of ourselves now that God is in charge, and we'll discover that we have joined the action.

I will open my heart, and I'll be joined to all that's around me.

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Some kids shout. Some ask their mothers what happened. Some follow. Some hide.

Once in a supermarket, a boy came near.

Monster, he said.

It's even worse when children cry.

"I feel like a normal person inside," Jacqueline Saburido says.

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"I will open my heart, and I'll be joined to all that's around me."

Amen to this statement, Carl. Beautifully written... and what a perfect time of the year for it!

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so offten i would come to this thread and look at it trying to give me a reson to stop using and i looked at this pore girl and still got in my car and drove so bad i was asking for help and my EGO and PRIDE stoped me.

i hit bottem this time and thats why im shaering this with every 1 so that i wont live the lie witch is so e z for me to do the hardest thing for me to do is to be honest and thats what it takes to get sober and the desier to want to quit 1 day at a time.

wow!

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Carl, by what you've written above... I see honesty.  And thank you for the story of the woman and her hair.  I wish I could learn to have such a positive and accepting 'attitude' toward things.

I'm so glad I read this tonight.  It gave me something I needed right now ~ hope.

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Too Much Christmas Cheer? A Number Of Tips On Staying In Control Over The Festive Season Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 18 Dec 2006 - 5:00 PST

Christmas is a time when the drinks flow freely- there are more parties than usual and the temptation is to overindulge a little.

After all, there are always New Year’s resolutions!

Unfortunately, some people drink more than they usually would, and this can lead to problems.

Professor David Kavanagh from The University of Queensland School of Medicine has been studying the treatment of alcohol problems and offered a number of tips on staying in control over the festive season.

“Remember to drink plenty of water and to eat throughout the day- being thirsty or hungry puts you at higher risk of drinking too much alcohol, especially on hot days," Professor Kavanagh said.

“Try alternating alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic drinks to slow you down, and keep track of how many drinks you are having so you won’t overindulge by ‘accident’.

“If drinking over lunch and dinner, have a break for several hours in the afternoon”.

Professor Kavanagh and other researchers from The University of Queensland are currently offering treatment programs for people who have problems with alcohol use, including people who are depressed and drinking too much.

“These programs are free, because we want to test which treatments are going to work best,” Professor Kavanagh said.

“We are particularly excited about our program to help people deal with cravings, and we think it is likely to be a significant advance on the methods being used at present.”

People who want to volunteer or get more information on the programs can call 1300 300 164 during business hours.

The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia

For further information please go to:
The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia
Source:
UQ News Online

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=59142&nfid=nl

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Beliefnet Prayer of the Day

Help Me to Stay Sober

- Beliefnet member dorjem

Appropriate for many faiths

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Good for you, Nippets! I bet you're going to 'party' ~ eh?!

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God bless you, Susan.  Please keep up those prayers.

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Sandy, Susan and your families ~ and all those who suffer from the addiction of alcohol, my prayers are with you. 

Prayer for Those in Need

Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I call unto Thee, when my heart fainteth; lead me to a rock that is too high for me.
For Thou hast been a refuge for me, a tower of strength in the face of the enemy. (the enemy here is alcohol)
I will dwell in Thy Tent for ever; I will take refuge in the covert of Thy wings. Selah

- Psalms 61: 2-5

Prayer for Healing

Heavenly Father, giver of life and health: Comfort and relieve your sick servant (name), and give your power of healing to those who minister to his needs, that he may be strengthened in his weakness and have confidence in your loving care; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.

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Amen, dear Nippets. And that sign in your avi says a lot, too!  

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Women And Recovery From Alcoholism

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 01 Feb 2007 - 11:00 PST

PhD candidate Ms Janice Withnall, from the UWS School of Education, is carrying out the project in a bid to better understand the experiences of women who have successfully stopped drinking.

National statistics show that alcohol-related illness hospitalises 95,000 Australians a year. Of that group, 7 per cent are women who are alcohol dependent.

However, Ms Withnall says the numbers of midlife women aged 35 to 55 years who are living with the painful flow-on effects from their own alcohol misuse - like health problems, damage to self-esteem, and impact on career, business and family - is increasing. The figure may be as high as 13 per cent, according to the 2005 Australian Longitudinal Study of Womens Health and the Australian Bureau of Statistics health data.

read on...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=61917&nfid=nl

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http://www.recoverycrossroads.com/forum/index.php

there are also free games on this link

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yes Cheryl I know first hand how woman have a harder time getting recovery.

there is a girl in our group that we havent seen for two months well she came in last week and told us she went back out she had 7 years sober.

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We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable." Step 1

Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.
No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.

But upon entering A.A. we soon take quite another view of this absolute humiliation. We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.

We know that little good can come to any alcoholic who joins A.A. unless he has first accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles himself, his sobriety--if any--will be precarious. Of real happiness he will find none at all. Proved beyond doubt by an immense experience, this is one of the facts of A.A. life. The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.

When first challenged to admit defeat, most of us revolted. We had approached A.A. expecting to be taught self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly deepening our dilemma, our sponsors pointed out our increasing sensitivity to alcohol--an allergy, they called it. The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever won through in single-handed combat. It was a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since man had first crushed grapes.

In A.A.'s pioneering time, none but the most desperate cases could swallow and digest this unpalatable truth. Even these "last-gaspers" often had difficulty in realizing how hopeless they actually were. But a few did, and when these laid hold of A.A. principles with all the fervor with which the drowning seize life preservers, they almost invariably got well. That is why the first edition of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," published when our membership was small, dealt with low-bottom cases only. Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed because they could not make the admission of hopelessness.

It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the following years this changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics. They were spared that last ten or fifteen years of literal hell the rest of us had gone through. Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this Step?

It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest of us had hit to the point where it would hit them. By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, "Perhaps you're not an alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?" This attitude brought immediate and practical results. It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again. Following every spree, he would say to himself, "Maybe those A.A.'s were right..." After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had become our best advocate.

Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect--unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.
Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We stand ready to do anything which wi  [ send green star]

So sad for that woman, Carl.  But at the same time... happy that she came back.  There must be some pretty wonderful people in that group!

Hey, this is all great info.  I like the info. re fears.  This applies to a lot of things in life... depression, anxiety disorders, etc.  Even when you grow up that old boogey man comes to visit, and he's just as scary as when you were a kid.

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me playing cards

well to Honest with all of you whaen i left the convention i picked up a drink and i got a DUI thank God i didnt kill no one

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I just joined www.sobersocial.com/ a site where sober people can meet and chat online, check it out.

I live in Central America where Semana Santa/Easter Week is rapidly approaching and thousands will be on the road drinking and driving, lots of hits and runs here and most of the time drivers get away with it as bystanders often afraid to be witnesses.

My drunk driving career ended in 1976 in the USA, I was lucky, the clutch on my car went out and after court, I went into treatment on my own, I easily could have killed someone or been killed.

My sober driving career began again in the 1980s, drove sober from Long Island, NY to Guatemala, had problems, yes, but was sober, for many years I escorted visitors and volunteers around Central America in my vehicle, logging over 800,000 "klicks" or 500,000+ miles

I'm not into "the right way or wrong way to work such and such a program, someone else's religious belief system or lack of one, etc." I am "into" not drinking or picking up today and having optimism about tommorow.

Been there, done that, walked through Hell many times and took a U turn.

Now I am helping a small non profit project..eco tourism, crafts and Revolutionary War musuem in a rural El Salvadorian town, soon invite one and all.

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Jacqueline is an inspiration to us all. Such an accident could happen to any one of us. If this happened to me I could only hope  the good things I've done in life bring healing. I shall pray to my archangel Raphael for her.

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this brought me back boy i was a mess at this time last year. we had are March round up last weekend and i didnt do what i did last year, im sober now coming up on a year wow

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CONGRATULATIONS..On your first year of sobriety..I have never been able to drink but I have been told the first year is the hardest year..Take it one moment at a time and ask the Creator to give you strength to overcome this devastating drug addiction..Although alcohol and tobacco are not listed as being drugs but they most certainly are..Both of these drugs are killers and both are some of the most addictive drugs that exist..If you smoke the best way to quit is by going cold turkey and drinking lots of water to flush the nicotine from your system.. CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN on your first year of being reborn..

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Just wanted to say hi and well done Steppin, that must have taken a lot of strength. I am trying to quit smoking, I did for 8 yrs then started up again yukers, got my gum and drinks loads of H20.It is a half hearted effort really. I will go cold turkey when I am ready like before. Just not ready yet. Those pics of the accident and that poor girl are really terrible, I could not bear to spend too much time over them. My heart goes out to her and her family.....it chokes me up. This seems like the only chat thread I can find to date here, I cannot see any dates either. I did a hi, n/a to that as yet. Perhaps things will get livelier.