In case anyone has missed this blog, I haven’t disappeared.

March 2008 has so far been an interesting month, and mostly for the right reasons.

I am getting married on March 29, and a few weeks ago I started a new full-time job. So I am adjusting to these two realities. I look forward to getting married very much, and I thoroughly enjoy my new job.

I have had the time to blog, I just haven’t had the energy to apply myself. I have one more Rosary Meditation for the Sorrowful Mysteries to write, and I can’t come up with anything that should see the blogosphere. I would like to get through the Glorious Mysteries for Easter, but that may not happen. I had also hoped to write Stations of the Cross Meditations.

I am (once again) sorry that certain fundamental changes in my life have interrupted the postings and development of this blog. That seems to have happened a lot since October 2007. At the very least, they can provide some hope to anyone still struggling with alcoholism or any other addiction that things do get better. It may take a while, but there is hope. Things do get better. After nearly 6 years of sobriety (with some major shocks and traumas to my system, such as a death in 2005 and a deep-seated rift in my family) I am getting married. I have found a decent paying and rewarding job. It’s just that putting the pieces together in a sober person’s new life isn’t an easy ride.

This blog may go on hiatus again. I will be moving around the beginning of April. I will be moving in with she-who-will-by-that-time be-my-wife. Not sure at this point if we will be living in her house, or somewhere else. The plan was to move into her house, but there has been some uncertainties suddenly developing regarding that. Details are unimportant but I will either be spending a lot of my time these next few weeks continuing the rehabilitation of parts of her house, or finding someplace else to live. Anyway, like last November and December, Internet service may be interrupted. My fiancee has Internet, but we will be switching to a different service provider and I am not sure how long (of even if) service will be off, it all depends on the move. So if there is very infrequent blogging over the next month, that’s why.

Once again, one great thing to do besides re-reading old posts is to read and pray about the Daily Mass Readings found in the link in the upper right. The inspired writers of the Bible are much better than I. Read them, and try to figure out how to apply them to living. That is what I did in my very early years of sobriety, and that habit lead to me writing this blog which quite often is about the Daily Mass Readings.

I am going through no small amount of stress, both the good and the bad kind. That also has taken it’s toll on the blog. When I’m not working at my new job or doing something nice with my fiancee, I am surfing all over the Internet as an escape. Perhaps an inappropriate response, but at least I didn’t return to drinking. Back in the day, I would drink because things got better, or drink because things got worse. I would drink to feel better, or drink to nurse or sustain resentments. Nice weather, bad weather, didn’t matter. And I am going through a lot of things which in the past would have driven me to drinking. It just shows that I also still have a lot to learn about alcoholism and spiritual development. The fact that I haven’t returned to drinking means that I also have learned a lot about those things, and about myself. I just have to fine tune things.One day at a time.

At any rate, like I said last Winter when I put this blog on hiatus to do a move, this blog isn’t going anywhere. It will be back and I really, really, hope that by May I can develop a regular routine.

Bear with me and pray for me, please.

Oh, one last thing, if anyone had hoped that I would blog a lot during Lent, what with this blog’s emphasis on interior conversion coinciding very nicely with this season’s focus, fear not! There is another Lent coming up later this year! There is another 40 day period on the Church calendar where you can invest in penitential practices and more deeply focus on your conversion! That period is the 40 days from the Transfiguration to the Triumph of the Cross. I’m too lazy to look up the actual dates, but I think that’s August 6 to September 15. It isn’t mentioned much by the Church, I only got the connection from some daily devotional I used to read. But when you figure that the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor was just a few days before His final journey to Jerusalem, culminating with His Resurrection later, you have to wonder why the Church placed the Transfiguration feast and the Triumph of the Cross feast 40 days apart. Anyway, I will attempt to take the Lenten Daily Mass Readings that I missed, and blog about them then. Attempt, because I will no longer promise anything for this blog until I deliver it.

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

After a delay of a few weeks, I am able to announce that I am back to blogging.

The long version of the story (there is no short version):

I relocated in October to be closer to my girlfriend, who I met in an online Catholic dating website. This was facilitated by my finding a job in early October.

So far, so good. Unfortunately (or not, depending upon how you look at it) I had to begin this job right away. So for a few weeks I had to split time between staying in my old place (200 mi/320 km East of her) and in accommodations near her. The weekly 3.5 hour commute was tiring and my free time in the old place was spent boxing up and packing, not blogging.

When I was able to find an apartment (which took up my time while I was in my new area) I thought I would be able to resume blogging by early November. But no! My girlfriend’s sister had decided that she no longer liked the details and situations involved with home ownership and wanted to move out of her house. She offered to rent her house to me at a fraction of the mortgage, with the notion that after my girlfriend and I marry in early-ish 2008 she’d move in (as wives do tend to live with their husbands!) and we’d pay the rest of the mortgage. Good deal. But, there was some misunderstanding or miscommunication about when I can move into the house, and although I thought I’d be living there by the end of November, it turns out that it won’t be until towards the end of December.

While I was under the original understanding of a November move, I decided that I wouldn’t bother with turning on all the utilities as I would be leaving in a few weeks anyway. So no gas heat or Internet at the new apartment. I didn’t want to go through the whole unpacking and setting up of my Mac for just a short period. I’m not that much of a computer geek concerning hardware. I could have blogged from my girlfriend’s computer, but she has an old “1990’s style”, dial-up connection 🙂 and I didn’t want to tie up her phone line for the hours that I would be on. An alternative was to have written blogposts offline an uploaded them later, but I chose not to do that.

Perhaps that was a bad decision, but I’m sticking with it as in all honesty, I’m not sure that I could have focused on Sober Catholic as much as I’d like to. So I’d just login to Blogger once in a while and write a short post to let anyone interested that I’m still alive and that the blog will return. I figured that new Sober Catholic readers would just spend the time getting caught up with old posts and older readers re-reading them, as many are long. Or everyone would avail themselves with exploring all the links in the sidebar as I occasionally exhort readers to do. After all, Sober Catholic is about using your Catholic Faith and spirituality in staying sober. The links are comprehensive sites all about the Faith, so why not explore?

At any rate, personally I was trying to cope with a whole host of new things all at once, and it was an effort to maintain sanity and sobriety. Figure this: in the last 2 months I moved from my hometown to get closer to my beautiful, holy, prayerful future wife, and all the discernment that is necessary for that, get a handle on a new job, get settled into a new place (or make that places, as I will be in this apartment for another month, I decided to get gas heat last week and early this week Internet access. I thought there’d be additional hook-up charges but was wrong. If I’d have known that a few weeks ago, I’d have gotten them done then) and how to get around a new area.

I was never in danger of relapsing, but getting used to many major, fundamental new things all at once was trying and stressful, and a test of faith and sobriety. Not a test inasmuch as losing either, but of a strengthening kind. At least regular blogging can resume, and perhaps within a few weeks can develop into a daily effort. My new job is 2nd shift (3:30-11:30 PM) meaning that when I awaken each morning I shall spend a good part of it writing. I wasn’t able to do that before, hence the average 2-4 posts a week. I have aspirations towards writing fiction, but after my morning prayer/breakfast/hygiene rituals, blogging will be first as it is a great way to get the brain engaged. I have plans to start another blog related to Sober Catholic. Early afternoons and evenings off will be devoted to fiction. My lady and I have plenty of time daily for each other, too.

So life is good and getting better. If this is God’s will for me, then my dreams are starting to be realized. If there is any lesson for anyone in all this, it is that you shouldn’t lose faith in your dreams, if they are meant to be, they will come true. Perhaps in God’s time and manner, not yours. Persevere and things will turn out well and the time it took to achieve them may have been fruitful. Maybe not the way you want, but in the way you need.

I apologize to anyone who didn’t like Sober Catholic going silent for nearly 2 months. I hope you accept and understand my reasoning, even if it might have been flawed at points. Be that as it may, I have engaged in a tremendous amount of growth and have an increased understanding of sobriety. I have learned to cope with negative developments and situations in my life these 5.5 sober years, and now I was tested with positive changes. They can be equally threatening to sobriety. I hope to bring that to Sober Catholic and hopefully the blog will be better as a result.

I had mentioned that I will be moving again in the latter half of December, that move however won’t be as disruptive. I doubt there will be any interruption in blogging, or at least not much.

Anyway, I’m back here. Enjoy Sober Catholic, and the new blog as well, which will be at http://the-four-last-things.blogspot.com sometime in December 2007 or January 2008.

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Just a short note to inform anyone wondering that posting will resume either next week or mid-November, depending on how well I can pack for the move.

If I can wedge a small, old, beat-up typewriting table in my car then I can probably resume blogging next week, assuming of course the phone company remembers to switch my DSL service to my new apartment.

If the table can’t be wedged then blogging won’t resume until I can rent a van after the first week in November and haul my furniture to the new place. Inability to stuff the table in the car isn’t likely as I can jam pretty much anything into something if my mind is set to it, and I’m not too concerned about appearance, after all, the table is old, as is the car. Besides, I think that’s how I moved it in the first place. Anyway, what’s a few more dents and dings and tears?)

There is the possibility of borrowing a table if wedging can’t be done.

I wonder if there’s a patron saint of packing and moving?

At any rate, the rosary meditations that I had hoped would be done by now will be very much late. My apologies.

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Dear Readers,

Just a short note to say that due to a sudden change in my personal and professional life, the Rosary meditations that I have been writing are being put on hold.

Blogging over the next month may be far more sporadic than usual as I have accepted a job offer in another city, so I have to prepare to relocate and move.

This blog will continue, it will not be abandoned. But for the next few weeks my priorities will be concerned with moving and starting up a new life a few hours away from where I am now.

Check in to Sober Catholic now and then, or better yet, subscribe via email or one of the feeds so you’ll know when there’s activity (look in the sidebar under the “subscriptions” stuff).

Pray for me as I always pray for my readers.

Take care, and God Bless. I shall be around here.

Love,

Paulcoholic

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)