Fun Fragile Times

I know I do write quite a bit about some scary life experiences I have had. I have some other memories. There were times when I was a child that I spent long afternoons playing Barbies with the two sisters I grew up with. In the wintertime, there were massive snowbanks where we would dig tunnels, and we would also go sledding and skating. Our parents used to take us camping in the summertime. We would swim and eat hot dogs cooked over an open fire. My Mum made this kind of bannok cooked on a stick and fill it up with jam for us on these camping excursions. It's becoming important to me to keep those good memories in mind. With practice, it can become natural to think positive, almost all the time. Three years ago, I couldn't think positive, at least barely ever. I had been trying to quit smoking for a long time. It was my smoking habit that brought out the problems that my long drinking career had been creating in my life. Every area was affected. When I tried to quit these things, I was miserable, every day. Today, and I know that today could be my last day, I concentrate on thinking about things that are uplifting or at least subjects that don't bring me down.

I talk and write about all these things that happened to me when I was growing up and as a young adult because it is in the past, my past, it's what I know. This is what happened. An uncle told me that I should create a character to write stories about, insinuating that my books are no good, he never read a one. He doesn't know. But I thought, why would I create a fictional character? I am right here. And my story is at least as good as something I could make up. This is where positive thinking can come into play. I was up late into the night reading articles when I started to research something, I forget what it was that brought it about, but I went down a dark path of symptom checking. By the time I went to bed, I was convinced that I had some rare disease. Except, in most instances, only Caucasian men ever have it. When I awoke, I was feeling optimistic and shed whatever it was that had caused me to get thinking terrible. Grateful for the day, I went about my usual business. The spring of the year I quit drinking I was overweight and lost 15 pounds, then after I quit in September, I slowly lost twenty pounds over a period of about two years. I quit eating meat and other animal products, rarely eating sugar, other processed foods, etc., and lost another fifteen pounds. After this, I had food-poisoning. I lost some more weight, becoming rather underweight. I think I understand how fragile a person can be. How quickly life can be taken away. One good flu and I could have been kaput. But I am healthy. I think I was officially shedding the last fat that I had begun to accumulate somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13. Surely I was experiencing the toxins from those fat cells being released into my system. I emotionally felt so awful. Even this, positive thinking was no match for! I took a day off.

I recently started taking a mindfulness course. This is how I keep it together. I also work a lot. I watch as much television as possible. I enjoy life in a way that I never did before. This is a time that will never happen for me again. With all the powerful and unstable events happening in the world today, I can not possibly know what tomorrow may bring. With that I know how much living is just for today. Sometimes, just for this moment.

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While you are here,

Lisa L'Heureux is the author of 7 books. Her work includes the Lisa's Sober Blog Series, This and the Man in the Moon and This One is About Domestic Violence. She lives with her family in Alberta, Canada.

More than six years ago, Lisa retired from practicing alcoholism.

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**Buy the Lisa's Sober Blog Books Gift Pack
        

        

Regarding The Cause: Stopping Violence Against Indigenous Women

I am Lisa L'Heureux. As some of you know, I had been involved in violent and abusive relationships for much of my life. What I now think is this, being mean doesn't mean that a person is tough. Instead, in my opinion, a person that can face daily life and handle everyday emotions is much more solid than someone who goes around getting what they want through intimidation and manipulation. Kindness also makes a person strong. 

I always thought that it was considered a weakness to show love. I rightly believed that love makes a person vulnerable. I still think that is true but I no longer believe that it is bad to be vulnerable. It is a part of the human condition. There are people who will take advantage of a person when they are vulnerable. This is the way of the abuser, I suppose.

As with any of the other issues I had picked up over the years, I am certainly not out of the woods with this Domestic Abuse thing, either. After all, I had managed to attract at least 10 abusive people into my life before now.

As with any of the other issues I had picked up over the years, I am certainly not out of the woods with this Domestic Abuse thing, either. After all, I had managed to attract at least 10 abusive people into my life before now. 

Is it true that we create our lives? Do we actually bring a certain kind of people into our lives? I noticed that since I quit drinking for quite a while there are no people in my life that are exceedingly judgy anymore. There is no one that causes rifts or that I cannot handle being around. I will not have it. Maybe life doesn't have to be as difficult as I once thought. Or maybe it does.

I don't know all the answers. All I can do is what I am able. I can meet and talk with people about Domestic Violence. I am able to help raise awareness. I can be a part of initiatives that focus on prevention, safety planning and education. I wasn't able to see that I could leave my abuser. I thought that he would forever be stalking me. He... I should say, they. Now that I have been through all I have and come out on the other side, I have a different perspective. 

Stay or leave? Lisa L'Heureux

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While you are here,

Lisa L'Heureux is the author of 7 books. Her work includes the Lisa's Sober Blog Series, This and the Man in the Moon and This One is About Domestic Violence. She lives with her family in Alberta, Canada.

More than six years ago, Lisa retired from practicing alcoholism.

. . . . .

**Buy the Lisa's Sober Blog Books Gift Pack
        

        

About My Twitter Bio

My Twitter Bio says "I used to think that it would be horrible to be a drunk until I woke up old one day so I quit drinking to watch myself grow old." At the end of my drinking career, I had all but lost hope for my sobriety, I was trying to quit unsuccessfully at the time. I had plans that I thought I was ready to execute. Those previous plans were thwarted by my inability to quit drinking on my own and salvage what I could of my then life.

Moving past all those broken dreams; I was getting very sick and aging in body, I thought, rather quickly. I was alarmed because I didn't get to live yet. I had what I considered a very bleak outlook for life from the beginning and dotted all throughout. There was no opportunity for me. My drinking and/or someone else's drinking had destroyed my life. I was daily drinking at the end and it became my greatest fear that I would not see myself get old now that I had begun to realize that I might continue to live after having done it for quite some time by then.

So there I was, falling apart at the seams, what was I to do? At long last I was delivered from my alcoholism. Two miserable years past and I learned how to live better than ever. Life was starting to look like it actually held promise. I continued to be sick even though I had not touched a drink, drug or cigarette in more than two years. Now what? How could I salvage what was left of my health and my life?

I had been watching documentaries about people who had changed their diets and exercise regimens in order to get their health back. For more than two years I had been studying what people had done to get healthy and yet I was aging quickly and hurting from all the years of drinking and smoking but didn't know what I should do.

Finally, I decided that I wasn’t going to go down like that, without having had a life to speak of up to then. These were my beliefs. I designed a diet for myself, a lifestyle change type of a diet that I could go into my new life with. I now believed that I could have a new start. If I could get my health in check, I could have another chance.

After altering my diet and exercising a little bit, I felt much better and began to see that my aging appeared to slow, although I was now much interested in the aging process. After all, I had believed I was ready to die as a young teenager and now it seemed that I might live to be an old woman. I have been taking every course I can to learn more about food, diet, aging and health. I have a better quality of life. Something to Tweet about.

This is a photo of a cloud that is shaped like a hand is underneath the sun with an arm then a head and part of another arm. **Photo by Lisa L'Heureux

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While you are here,

Lisa L'Heureux is the author of 7 books. Her work includes the Lisa's Sober Blog Series, This and the Man in the Moon and This One is About Domestic Violence. She lives with her family in Alberta, Canada.

More than six years ago, Lisa retired from practicing alcoholism.

. . . . .

**Buy the Lisa's Sober Blog Books Gift Pack