What I Am Looking Forward To In Sobriety

Going thru some old email files I came across this from an old member on my sites, Chuck H. Great little story in Sobriety. Be sure to scroll down to view his movie "What I Am Looking Forward to In Sobriety". This is the email I got from him three years ago:

Okay Mike, I was going to share a story with you about The Interview with God and Footprints.  First I am 72 years old, celebrated 25 years of sobriety this past April and have been retired for the last 11 years.  In sobriety, I have learned that I can still learn new "stuff" as long as I have the willingness to learn new stuff.  So in retirement I learned how to "make movies."  Quite a fun hobby, taking old 8 mm films, capturing, putting on a computer, editing, adding voice, music, titles and transitions.  Taking photos and making them into "Talking" photo albums.  I have been doing this for about 10 years now and since I live in a retirement community, I even teach how to do the above.  By the way the software I prefer is Pinnacle Studio, far and away better than Windows Movie Maker.

Anyway, I had seen The Interview with God, done in Power Point and I was wondering if I could reproduce this using Pinnacle.   The tricky part is bringing in the titles via different transitions and different timing.   It was a learning curve, but it works.  Anyway I was very pleased with what I accomplished and now will take this to our next Pinnacle Users group and show them how it is done.  Fun things to do in sobriety.

Okay, I am sitting at the breakfast table, with my wife of 44 years, (the day after I finished Footsteps) and she says to me, "Do you want to know what your next project is?"  Dummy me, I said, "Yes."  She points to a picture on the wall above our dinning room table.  It is called "What I am looking Forward to in Sobriety."  This is the story behind this painting.

I was 5 1/2 months sober, when in a meeting I heard a man say that if he wrote down all the things he wanted to find in sobriety, he would have sold himself short.  I not only did not believe him, I cannot resist a challenge.  So I went home and I wrote out a list of all the things I hope to find is sobriety, not because I really hope to find them as much as I want to prove this man wrong.  I did not write that I wanted a new car, new house, new wife (the marriage at that time in my life was a disaster).  I wanted to write down really profound stuff, that I knew would never happen in my life, like "To Believe in God and Not Ask Why!"  or "To Learn not to Fear!"  So I wrote this solely to prove this man wrong.

You can kind of guess the rest.  I have experienced every single thing of this list.  I mean everything.  I have to laugh,  one of the things I listed was "To Write My Story."  I did and my story appeared in the Grapevine, December of 2006.  God does have a sense of humor.  But the guy I heard at 5 1/2 months sober was right, I sold myself short.  I never asked for self respect on my list and I have that.  I never asked for a family to be put back together.  (My daughter just celebrated 25 years of sobriety on June 16th).  But most of all no where on that list did I ask for the loneliness to be removed from my life and it has been a very long time since I have felt lonely.

Now as to the picture on the wall, is a copy of my writing turned into a picture by my Dad who was an artist.  He was proud that his son found sobriety through AA.  He liked my writing so much that made a picture out of my writing and that is when Dorothea (my wife) said that would be my next project.

So I did it and it is attached. 

Now in the first two videos the writing is not mine, but someone else's.  Now the photos and the video editing are all mine.  But the last I am sending you are not just my photos and video editing but my writing as well.

All that writing I did do (even when at the moment my motives was to prove someone wrong) can really be summed up in the promises.  I wanted to be happy, joyous and free.  That simple. 

Anyway Mike, I am still having fun in sobriety and still love going to meetings and still love working with others.  Life is good.

Chuck