Kasia

[kasia9752]

I'm Kathy and I am an alcoholic.

In 1982 if I had been hit with the difficulties that I have had in the past several years, prior to sobriety, I'd have been heading for the bottle, and not bottle of beer!

I wanted the good stuff and I don't mean drugs, 100 proof or better. Sobering up and cleaning up, for that naturally came along with sobriety for me, I had to clean my house out. For me it wasn't a one time cleaning, it had to be peeled off one layer at a time and there are still occasional spots that need peeling, and working through.

When I had my retina in my left eye, which was my good eye detach in
1986 I had 3.5 years worth of ODAATs, and the strength that HP gave me helped me to work through two hospitalizations and a possible third for surgery to reattach the retina. It reattached on its own but HP tossed a twist in there, and then gave me options to deal with the twist. The macula, viewing screen of the eye, folded in a pleat right down the center and because of the amount of damage I already had, thanks to the acute nearsightedness, acute myopia (medical term), I already had the my ophthalmologists were afraid to try to fix it for fear of costing me the rest of the sight in that eye which is why I count fingers at five foot in the left eye on the outer edge of the eye only. I have no central vision and this was my good eye which had had a 20/25 correction. The right eye I had tunnel vision in and it was 20/200. When trying to reattached the retina they loosened the muscles in the right eye so that I had a little sid e vision and that actually caused me to gain vision in that eye so that occasionally I actual go to 20/80 with it! The loss of vision cost me my job through temporary agencies as a secretary, office manager, and word processor. I had a boy friend then who had moved to Illinois to join his mother and I house kept for his father. His father died of a heart attack and he came up for the funeral and invited me to come out there and join him. I did, and it was the correct move for I had talked to HP about it, and finally started to become totally independent of my folks. Ninety miles away, as I was in MD was too easy to say I need help so never really had to be totally dependent on myself. Illinois was 1,000 miles away and I had to depend on HP and meetings for my sobriety and to gain maturity.

Unfortunately I realized shortly after moving out there that the "boy friend" seven years younger and 10 inches shorter, was using and abus ing and he was physically abusive also. I knew if I charged him with physical abuse I would be laughed out of court because of the height and weight difference, I was 10 inches taller, and 45 pounds heavier but he had worked with horses and had muscular strength that didn't show! Because of his abuse I moved out into a place on my own, applied for my SSD and SSI and was granted both because I had already worked for 20 years. He called me regularly and professed to still want to see me until about 18 months later when he called and introduced me to his new wife who promptly cussed me out over the phone and then slammed the phone in my ear when I congratulated her and asked to talk to him so I could congratulate him. I was in shock. Walked past six bars to get to the recovery club that was operating then, if later failed, to make a meeting. I had met my friend Troy about a year earlier when he first walked in the rooms, but I do n't believe in 13 stepping, and for some reason HP kept me from being 13 stepped, and he had celebrated a year about two months before this occurred. It was a hug meeting that night and I had not been hugged when he walked in the room and asked who hadn't been hugged after he got picked on and I was the only one who hadn't been hugged or spoken and I shared what had come down in the past three hours and felt so much better. He offered to walk me home, and then walked himself home to his own place which was about three miles away. Called me later the next week to check on how I was doing and that was how we started dating.

He had never had a girlfriend, was used to professionals, and I had had a series of bad relationships, even the one that was good I lost when my finance died of this disease, so I didn't know how to handle a "good" relationship. We both learned.

He is 18 years younger then I so I got teased regularly about robbing the cradle, at that point in time I was 40, he was 22, but he also wasn't interested in women his own age and stated so, and HP allowed it to work for 5 years, until we moved up to his father's at his father's request.

His father decided that I had to much influence on Troy, so he decided to destroy our relationship and Troy, at that time was to immature to see what his Dad was doing. Six weeks we moved up there as a couple he broke up with me and I moved here to Jamestown. We stayed in touch via email because I had told him that I would not hold on to min but I wasn't going to give up the friendship unless he demanded it. He came by to see my place in April of the next year and told me that his father had lied, and basically he was finding a place on his own. He had been diagnosed in Illinois as bipolar, rapid cycler but they had mismedicated him and then took him off the meds. During the 18 mounts between m y move to Jamestown and breaking my hip in July 2000 he realized that he needed counseling and started back. When he finally located me after I disappeared off the email, two weeks after, and a week before I got out of the in-patient physical rehabilitation I was in to learn to use a walker, and found out what was going on in my life he immediately offered to come and stay with me so I had help in my apartment etc. Consequently, he also had a major manic attack and went and turned himself into the police and asked that they take him to the emergency mental crisis floor of the hospital here in Jamestown. I was the only person he called. So for the first six months he traveled between where he lived, 23 miles north of here and here via bus, doesn't drive, to stay with me and start the counseling and get on his proper medications. If this had happened before I sobered up I would have been caretaking him instead of just lettin g him do what he needed for himself. March of
2001 he got accepted into a program for those with mental illness which would help pay rent, keep an eye on him etc. He moved in which me while apartment hunting and we actually picked up the destroyed relationship and eventually ended it the way it would have without his father's interference for we both knew it wasn't a permanent one. Troy found his own apartment in August 2001.

Me I started back to college in 2003 working on the Art History degree that I had wanted for years and had given up for practical when in Illinois, got my Accredited Medical Records Technician instead, with his and others encouragement for Troy is an artist, and as you all know I have just been accepted to the school I wish to get my BA from. That was July of 2006. I stated that college, its online Empire State College, SUNY, in September, broke my left hip with two weeks left in the semester finished it up in a nursing home where HP provided use of a computer for me and started this semester which is just ended while there. I spent one week in the hospital and 10 in the nursing home recovering from the broken left hip, relearning to walk, and getting needed pt for that and also the MS I was diagnosed with in 2005. Came back here in February and in spite of hospitalizations and ensuing events finished up last semester with a B-, B, A, and B+. This semester I am looking at nothing under a C+, I am still sober, The friendship with Troy is in one of its periodic negativities and may be a permanent one. I don't like his choices but all I can do is turn him over to HP and that is alright. Whether or now I will have another SO in my life is up to my HP but he has given everything I need and some more besides and has introduced me to you all.

Right now I have no idea what HP has in store for me as I am waiting to get some paperwork needed to continue college. I had an allergic reaction to a new medication for one of the symptoms of the MS which forced me to drop out of college Am paying of debts created in sobriety; since this ultra-responsible person went into the irresponsible phase after i sobered up that most hit before sobriety and am in the process of cleaning the debris from that

Kasia
DOS 12/27/82