re - now I'm babbling - well I do that all the time, so welcome to the 
club.  I'm glad you're coming up on 9 years.  The biggest challenge 
I've found facing me at this time in my sobriety is keeping it - my 
memories of my experience as an active alcoholic - green and 
"remembering when".  You know what they say, "S/he who forgets the past
is condemned to repeat it"  And, for me, that would be easy enough to 
do as it seems like it was so far away and vague in the bad old days - 
almost like another life.  Keeping myself willing to do what I have to 
do to take care of myself is essential - yet it becomes harder.  I 
understand now why some old-timers I have heard speak say that with 
each year of sobriety, they consider themselves that much closer to 
their next drink, if they don't remain eternally vigillant.  I know I 
still have to remind myself that it's the first drink - the very FIRST 
one - that would get me drunk and trigger the physical compulsion, no 
matter how many steps I've taken and no matter how much "recovery" I 
have in my life.  If I'm an alcoholic, as I know I am, I still can't 
drink IN SAFETY ever.
.
This is more important than ever for me to remember right now.  When I 
was drining, one of the times I used alcohol to comfort myself was when
I was sick - and I have one heck of a "flu" now.  In fact it is at 
these times that are just about the only times I even have a flashing 
thought pass through my mind of drinking in any positive light.  But I 
used to comfort myself with Ginger Brandy and Wine and use a good cold 
as an excuse - right up until someone came up with Nyquil - or however 
it's spelled - and it's generic analogs that are loaded with alcohol, 
so I didn't NEED booze.  I could do it with "medicine".
.
And, about Babbling, one more thing, in psychotherapy, "babbling" and 
other free-associative techniques are often employed to help a client 
get to the root of his/her problems because they often come up, 
unbidden, to the surface mind from the unconscious.  In normal english,
this means that babbling MAY be good for your recovery.   (Anyway, us 
babblers have to stick together, right?)
--- TriToss (tm) Professional 10.0 - #66
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