Happy Birthday

It was my wife's birthday this past Friday. No, not her regular birthday, that's not until August. The one she had this past weekend was a very special 1 year anniversary of her not using a certain type of destructive and utterly addictive illicit substance. In Narcotics Annonymous, they celebrate this by calling it your "NA Birthday", and every year they give each other cakes and sing to one another. It's a nice gesture.

We headed out to one of the Friday night meetings in Hollywood. There's always tons of people there. It's not the best meeting if you want to hear what's going on. There's always chatter filling the small gymnasium from people who might not be as respectful of the healing process as others might be. My wife and I went with my father in law; who has been clean for 30 years, and his sister; who came down all the way from Sacramento for the special occassion.

This was a pretty important moment in my wife's life. If she hadn't decided to stop what she was doing a whole year ago, I don't think we would be together now. Not because I would have left her. Nothing would ever make me stop loving her. It's just that I don't think she would be alive now. But she's doing so much better than she was in July of 2005. This is when she decided to check herself in to a rehab clinic in North Hollywood. She was supposed to be in there for at least 3 months, but rebellious and non-conformist Heather was out of there in 2 weeks. She was (and still is) determined to do it herself. She took control of her recovery and hasn't used what was ruining her life.

Now, a whole year later, it's almost as if the wonderful person that was buried deep within her has blossomed, like a flower, and it's great to see her being happy and not acting crazy. Some of the shit we went through a year ago was almost so surreal I thought it was a nightmare. I'm just glad that she is as strong as she is now not to pick it up again. I admire her strength and resolve. I can see a future for us now. A year ago, I wasn't sure. Now, I'm looking forward to it.

*End of sappy-post. I will be going back to the usual entries after this.

P.S. - We did get a slight celebrity sighting at the Friday night meeting. We saw a certain actress that used to be on Entourage. I'm not going to say who it was, but her yellow crayon and sharpie marker doodles were quite nice. Heather thinks she was probably on the same thing she used to be on, since she would always draw when she was on that stuff. Anyway, this girl was on her first 30 days clean, so I hope she continues and sticks with it.