Carving a portrait of a dead dog for a co-worker. Never thought I would be asked to do that. So here I am memorializing a prize-winning dog. First carved then burning in the spots the dog had. Interesting to do this, makes me wonder why I took up carving and burning in the first place. How did I suddenly start doing this. I now own hundreds of dollars of equipment for carving and burning and don't even know h0w it started. I like doing it though.

When I am carving I get caught up in it and forget about drinking, which is a good thing. The bad thing is sometimes I forget to go to meetings. I look up at the clock and it is too late to go. My sponsor is okay with it as long as it is occassional and not a daily thing. I admit I miss the taste of scotch an aweful lot. But I guess I don't miss the complications it was causing. Tiger was suffering because of it. She put up with alot. I sure was lucky when Tiger came into my life. I can't think of too many people that would have stuck by my side through my drinking the way Tiger did.

I am chairing the wednesday night meetings for this month. I have been a bit nervous about it, but I guess I have been doing good enough. I have gotten nice comments after the meetings. The people are very kind. Tonight the subject was hope and the second step. Some folks seemed at a loss as to how to process the concept but it turned out okay. Next week is step three and I think I will just stick to just step 3 proper readings. I can't think of anything original for the subject.

I get frustrated at the meetings because I never can think of anything pithy to say. I just am a boring speaker. All I have to talk about is how I feel that God rejected me when I got kicked out of the monastery and it feels like it was yesterday and not nearly 20 years ago. I can't explain it. I dream of the place and live it every night. Every morning I wake up and have to realize I'm not there all over again. I go through the pain every morning. I drank to keep the dreams away. When I drank I didn't dream and then I wouldn't have the pain of the morning. Now it is there whether I like it or not. God, you'd think after 20 years it would be over. I was only a nun for 7 short years...surely it shouldn't be such a big deal. But it is even now. It looms over every aspect of my life. No one knows, except perhaps Tiger, how much it still hurts. At least the alcohol killed the pain. No that isn't true because I cried when I drank about it. The alcohol caused me to blank out and I simply didn't remember the next morning.

I get frustrated because people think i should just let it go and forget about it. During the day I do forget about it. It is the night that it all comes back, in my dreams every night I dream about them. I relive every night the rejection. I wish I could hypnotize myself to change my dreams but I can't. Nor can I return to drink to drown out the dreams, it was killing me. It was destroying the relationship I treasure with Tiger. Now I am just repeating myself. Enough said on the subject. Tonight was hard because I talked about it and I could tell that no one understood. How could they understand? I don't think anyone can.