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**taw** · February 19, 2013, 08:44 AM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

CONGRATS WINDY!!! :l:l I have missed you!! I am so happy, proud, encourged, motivated and determined because of you and your story!! Please do come bac and keep us updated! :h

**Bruunhilde** · February 19, 2013, 11:34 AM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

WINDY, Thank you for your letter, it is so helpful (mountain analogy) and inspirational. I'm so happy for you and impressed as hell given your history. You're young enough to have it all still! :h

My very best wishes for your dad's treatment. I'm so glad you're together as a family again.

I dont need to tell you to keep up the AF as you obviously are doing a spectacular job of it. But some of your anxiety/OCD ssues are probably potential triggers so keep the gabapentin handy - are you still taking it? You know the cost of a drink so clearly that I'm not really concerned but just want to help keep you in the Inspirational zone. Can't believe its been a year! Congratulations!!!

Much love and happiness to you.:l

**spacebebe01** · February 19, 2013, 12:12 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

Bruun how weird I was thinking of you earlier and tried to send you a pm. How are you?

**LadyLush** · February 19, 2013, 01:29 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

Windy!:l

I can not believe we started this journey a year ago! Unfortunately I slipped and fell and rolled down hill since then!
I am back on Bac again and stringing sober days along once more.

It is so darn good to hear how well you are doing and hooray for your family!
Bravo my friend!:applaud:

Lots of love!:l

LL

**windycitylady** · February 19, 2013, 02:04 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!

Once again, I'm moved to tears by all of you. Every single one of you.

It's great to hear from the friends I know and love so much. But also so amazing to "see" so many new faces. That's so exciting.

Thank you for the well wishes from everyone I haven't yet met. I hope you all find the wonderful love and support here that I have. And if there's any way I can help you myself, don't hesitate to reach out.

Stuck, I adore you. You know this. There's no one else in the world that I'd rather have as my biggest cheerleader and no one else that I'd rather be the biggest cheerleader for. We make a great team. (Too many sports analogies?)

Ne, I'm glad we've been on this journey together too. I can honestly say that you're one of the most interesting personalities I've ever encountered. And I've been in some pretty fucking weird situations. But you're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And, most importantly, you use your powers for good. That you're still here every day, helping people, despite all the other stuff you have going on....it's amazing. You're generous, warm, and...never afraid to speak your mind.

Just keep following the heartlines on your hand. Cause I am.
Oh, and I forced a certain person we both know to listen to Eminem. So expect him to be cured of all his ills any minute now. :H Though side effects may include wearing a baseball cap backwards and slapping bitches.

Space! So wonderful to see you! Did I read somewhere that you've been AF since December? That's fantastic! I think you're taking a med that I'm unfamiliar with. What's it called again? How have you been feeling? How's the family? The newlyweds?
Ha! Mom has been fully clothed lately. But as soon as it gets warm, all bets are off. Along with pants. She also enjoys gardening in ill-fitting bathing suits. And let's just say her attitudes toward body hair removal are...minimalist. But I love her to death.

Bruun, I think of you often. You've always been one of my favorite MWO personalities, going back to when I was a lurker myself. This thyroid thing sounds amazing! So you're feeling much better? I do still take gabapentin. If I wait too long to take a dose, I can feel my depression and anxiety creeping back. My cousin went to a psychiatrist recently who took blood and urine samples and also had her spit into a cup. All of this fun stuff gets sent to Harvard where her neurotransmitter levels and genetics are analyzed. Have you heard of such a thing? How's work? Still busy? I'm still expecting you to announce that you're a billionaire any minute. At which point I will demand compensation for being a (kinda?) good friend.

Taw! Sweetheart! Been missing you! How's everything? How's your little guy? Hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas. I may be visiting your neck of the woods soon. In which case, I would love to chain smoke for hours standing up outside a Starbuck's. Deal?

I had a great dinner with my family last night. A good friend of mine is a server at the restaurant we were at. He was just leaving but brought over a chocolate milkshake and said congratulations on one year. Sweet. On several levels.
I actually got up the nerve to read my family what I wrote on MWO yesterday. This may come as a surprise give the length and level of detail of my posts here, but I'm actually a pretty private person in day to day life. Maybe that actually makes sense...Anyhow, I read it to them. I omitted some parts. About the naughty stuff I've done and about my dad's health. But I read them everything else. I surprised myself by actually getting so choked up at points that I had to stop reading. My mom and one of my sisters were crying as well. My other sister remarked, "I've never actually heard you say these things." And it's true. They've never heard me say out loud that my first relationship in Chicago was abusive (they knew it). They didn't know that that relationship went on as long as it did (I told them it ended 2 years before it actually did; the last year I had an apartment that I paid for but stayed with him.) They've never heard me admit to being a daily drinker for years.
Mom said reading it to them was a gift I was giving them.
People who know me well have heard me go on and on about how amazing my family is, so I won't devote too much time here to it. I do want to say that I realize how very, very lucky I am to have them. For years it was actually a sore spot for me. How could I be such a terrible, fucked up person when I have these amazing people who care so much for me? Why do they care so much for me? I am eternally grateful to have such a wonderful family. And to be able to say that they are my best friends these days as well.

It was bittersweet though. I felt like a bit of a hypocrite. I knew that there were opiate painkiller pills in my purse that I bought from a girl at work. I knew that just a few weeks ago, I ran into my dad in the kitchen at 5 AM and could barely keep my eyes open because I'd taken more valium than I should have. Ha! "Should have". Like I should be taking any at all. There's just a lot of things that I'm not quite ready to do completely sober. That just seem too scary. I would be doing fine without drugs of any kind then a situation would come up like hanging out with a guy I'm interested in. That would have me reaching for my phone and looking for anything that's Not Booze. And it's not completely that I needed to feel fucked up. It was just as much that I wanted to have something to blame if I did something wrong. "Oh, did I say something stupid? Musta been those valiums I took." "Really I'm much more fun than I was the other night. I had eaten those pain pills, you know." Though I do enjoy feeling intoxicated as well.
Maybe these are just situations that I'm just not ready for yet. I've been chilling out on that front. Just trying to stay at home or hang out with friends that I feel very comfortable with.

Thanks again, guys.
Love you all. Wishing everyone a wonderful day.
:l:l

**windycitylady** · February 19, 2013, 02:07 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

X posted, LL.

So glad you're here and doing well. Keep stringing those days together! They'll add up!

Much love and hugs!

**Ne/Neva Eva** · February 19, 2013, 06:33 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

I won't go into how stupid-crazy-busy-stressful my week has been. Actually, I think I will. 3 exams. Doing less than stellar on one of them would've meant starting all over again. 2 papers. Orientation in the hospital. First full day in a hospital where I touched an actual sick human being. And that was just school. Oy holy mother effin'... I am so exhausted and thrilled! Mostly exhausted. It's really a shame that adrenaline just stops, dropping me off the cliff, instead of ebbing into a comfortable normal place. Anyway.

I didn't realize I was freaking out a little bit until I got in the shower this morning. I found myself unconsciously reciting "I'm not afraid" and thought, "Wow! I think I'm really afraid!" (Today was first hospital/actual sick human being day.) I thought of you, of course, and had a chuckle for both of us.

Then I got out of the shower and did what I needed to do (even if I didn't need to, exactly) to make sure that my emotions did not get the better of me today. That I could be present and in check, because even two years in, I can get on the carousel. I wish that'd included exercise and meditation and all the stuff that I know works. But after 4 hours of sleep and running late, I opted for the easier/quicker better-living-through-chemistry option. I am what I am, it is what it is, and I'm smart enough (hardly brilliant, though) to use ALL the tools in the box. We take steps, don't we, to be fully engaged and to take care of ourselves and what we love and care about? There're a lot more than 12, and it really has very little to do with the disease after a while. It's just life. *sigh* and WOOOHOOOOO!

But for me it usually starts with eminem. That crazy fecker. And our friend could do worse than to start slappin' some biatches, just so long as they're the ones in his head dragging him down.

Super love. To you AND to your family. I want to meet them! Seriously. Some day...

**onequart** · February 19, 2013, 09:45 PM

An Open Letter to Newbies, Lurkers, and...Everyone Else Too

So, basically Windy got off alcohol on her own? Without meds?

Congrats!!

**StuckinLA** · February 20, 2013, 12:30 AM