<strong>By Tanya Hazelwood</strong> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Excuse me?</strong></p> Excuses - The alcoholic’s first line of defense. Sure, everyone makes up excuses for things but we alcoholics are full of them. Mine were abundant. I drank because I was happy, I drank because I was sad, I drank because I had a bad day at work, I drank because I had a good day at work, I drank because I had a little extra cash, I drank because I was broke, I drank to numb pain, I drank to feel good, I drank because it was a nice day, I drank because it was a rainy day, I drank because I was bored, I drank because I had too much to do. Do you know I even had to drink to get the dishes done? Yes, that’s right, that was my excuse, it mellowed me out enough to do the stinkin’ dishes. <p align="JUSTIFY">The excuses for my behavior, while I was drunk, were ridiculous. Always looking for pity, that way people would excuse me from being a drunken moron. Little did I know they just pitied me because I had a drinking problem and wouldn’t admit it. It’s amazing the light you shed on yourself after getting sober.</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">You really have to let go of excuses. Sure, yeah, I’ve had a bunch of trauma in my life. Yeah, it happened, but that’s still no excuse. Sure, I have bad days, still do but now I don’t go running for a bar or a bottle. I pray about it, or I talk about it, or I write about it.</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">I no longer make excuses. I make truths about myself. I can admit the wrongs I’ve done, I can try to make amends. I took a good hard look at who I was or who I want to be or who I was destined to be. The person I wanted to be is pretty close to the one that’s writing this right now. I was locked inside my own personal hell so long that I believed that I could never be this person. That was just an excuse. If I tried to become the person I wanted to be that meant giving up drinking. So there entered all the excuses.</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">Now I am seeing people around me with all of their excuses. Oh, they can’t stop drinking because this …or they can’t go to counseling because of that, they can’t come to church because blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I’ve heard it all before. I’ve said it all before. I have a master’s degree in excusology. You ain’t foolin’ me, OK?</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">You have to make a promise to yourself that you want to better yourself. You have to make an effort that you aren’t going to make excuses anymore. Excuses get you absolutely nowhere in this world and will definitely get you nowhere fast as an alcoholic except deeper in the bottom of a bottle, or jail or perhaps even death.</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">It’s the same as a person that is jobless and turns down a minimum wage job because they won’t work for less than $10. BALONEY!!!! It’s an excuse! They obviously don’t want to work because minimum wage is certainly better than $0 an hour. Just like sober is much better than drunk and miserable. It’s your choice, stop making excuses.</p>
