A Very Grateful and Fortunate Person

Yesterday evening I was fortunate enough to drive to a surrounding GA meeting with three great GA members. In that meeting there were two birthday celebrations; a one year and a thirty-six year. I was there to celebrate the birthdays but I was there to support the member who was celebrating his thirty-sixth year in the GA program. This particular member has become a very good friend of mine and took the time to speak at my sentencing hearing over a year and a half ago.

This is a person I do my best to emulate and the fact that he has over 36 years in the program informs me what this program is all about. This program is a program of recovery and in recovery an essential element is giving back. This member gives back at a tremendous rate. In fact, most of the members I have met with substantial years in the program give back at tremendous rates. This is no coincidence as the fact that the three other people who drove down to the meeting with me give back to the program by being involved.

The GA Program is all about helping others with a compulsive gambling problem and it is regular everyday people who are involved. I am sure there are some doctors, psychologists and other professional people in the program but for the most part these are regular everyday people who also have a compulsive gambling addiction. I am more then blessed to be associated with this program and like a very dear friend said to me, I hope in 20 years GA will be a part of my life. I want and need GA in my life which is why I continue and will continue to be involved with such a fantastic program one day at a time for a lifetime.

The ride to and from the GA meeting is sometimes an adjunct to the meeting itself and last night was no exception. I remember driving to the same birthday celebration three years ago when I first entered the program. At that time I drove down with two other members and those two members are still very involved with the program. In fact one of those members was in the car last night.

This time the two other members in the car had come into the program while I was “away”. It doesn’t matter how much time they have in the program because it appears to me that they “get it”. It is a program of service which means helping others and last night these two members were helping me as I witnessed their dedication to GA. I have said this before but it does bear repeating GA is an incredible program with incredible people.

I went to sleep knowing today was going to be a great day and it certainly was a great day. I got up and went to work out. Since I am “officially” training for the San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon on June 1st today meant a long running day for me. I got in a very good 12 mile run before I met my very good friends for a game of golf.

The run was excellent but I do have a difficult time adhering to the training program. I’m not sure what it is but for some reason I want to push myself even harder then the training program. I went to Runner’s World on-line and had a marathon training program printed out for me and I even selected the category of “hard” for type of training program but in my mind this must not be hard enough. Oh well, I went a little harder then the training program today but I am getting better because the last time I ran I went a great deal harder then the training program. Anyhow it was indeed a very good training session.

After I finished my exercise session I went to pick up a very good and dear friend who was joining for the golf game. We drove to the golf course together and met my two other very good friends who drove all the way from Las Vegas so we could play golf today and tomorrow. These are old and dear friends. Our initial connection early was that we worked together a long time ago but through the years and different other jobs we remained friends.

We not only remained friends when I moved out of Las Vegas but we remained friends when my fall from grace happened. This is a true definition of the word friend for me. One of these dear friends visited me twice while I was at the fire camp and that meant taking a 280 mile drive one way. God is definitely shining down on me with all these incredible friends.

It was great to see them and it was like old times when we used to play golf together. The golf round went very well and I played okay. I do have a lot of rust in my game but the smile remains on my face. Bad shots don’t mean what they used to as I laugh most of the time. There are a few “what was that” as my swing went awry a few times but hitting a golf ball into a lake really has new perspective. I have no hopes of playing on the PGA Tour and I am grateful to be able to be outside playing a game I enjoy. It was a wonderful afternoon with wonderful friends. My life continues to get better with each passing day.

We capped off the day with a great dinner and an outstanding local seafood restaurant. I will give this place a plug. If anyone is in the Temecula, California area I highly recommend “Harry’s Pacific Grill”. This was my second time eating there since my release and both times the food was fantastic. I do enjoy fish and the first time I ordered the salmon which was splendid. Today I had the Halibut which was just as good. It was a great meal with great friends. It was so good to see them and tomorrow I get to play golf again with these two dear friends.