Quoc’s Web Journal

Hey my peeps, check out my friend Frederic’s ALC website as he needs an additional couple hundred bucks to qualify to ride in the June 2008. He needs your help to raise that minimum amount to qualify him to ride and beyond that… This is the very same ride that I made the bid for but realized I had placed way too much on my plate and needed to scale back to take care of me and do things piece meal. I am hoping that you can pass the love and support you have for me to my friend who needs that extra nudge to make the $2,500 mark and perhaps even push the $4,000 goal he has going!!!

By the way, all these proceeds are going to help find treatment and ultimately a cure for HIV/AIDS!!!

Handsome Frederic’s website (it’s worth taking a look at as he is very very handsome!):

http://www.aidslifecycle.org/5686

On behalf of Fred, thank you for your generous contributions in support of this very very worthy cause… By the way, I will be riding in June 2009!!! KEEP AN EYE OUT AND IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A DONATION, YOU CAN DO THAT ON THE LINK THAT I HAVE RIGHT NOW IN MY EARLY PUSH TO RAISE FUNDS FOR NEXT YEAR… CHECK OUT THE LINK ON THIS RIGHT BAR!

Thanks again!!!

Quoc

So, I am five days from taking a chip for thirty days clean and sober… What actually is more of an incentive is that I have only four more days of taking newcomer chips!!! I’ve taken sooo many newcomer chips in the past couple months! I have taken way over 30 chips this past month as I have been going to multiple meetings on certain days. I am sooo over taking newcomer chips!!! I am sooo over standing up and identifying as a newcomer! I am sooo ready to take my week of thirty day chips and get to sit down for yet another three weeks before taking a week of sixty day chips before waiting… etc…

What I really get to do is hopefully to enjoy taking these newcomer chips with hopes that these will be my LAST newcomer chips I will need to take one day at a time for the rest of my life! So, how did I get to where I am today with the opportunity to get 26 days clean & sober when my head hits my pillow tonight? Well, there is this “guiding principle” for behavior change that we teach in the training I co-facilitate: “STRENGTH MOTIVATES CHANGE.”

I truly am on the receiving end and the direct result of strength motivating change!!! I remember just two weeks ago when I took my chip for nine days clean and sober on April 27, 2008. I was depressed and just didn’t feel very hopeful… What pulled me out of it? Going to a meeting and getting up to take a chip to hear the loudest most thunderous applause in support of myself and my fellow newcomers who were courageous enough to walk to the front, take a chip and hug and identify out loud in front of over two hundred people that we were newcomers! The applause didn’t stop for the thirty, sixty, ninety days, six months and nine months chip takers!!! It gave me goosebumps to hear so much love and support for their new and returning warriors in this battle to live with this disease called alcoholism!

This past week, what kinds of events supported me in growing?

1) Getting to go to a birthday party for three friends who celebrated five years clean & sober; there was a dance as well! What an amazing event… I had sooo much fun… I almost ended up adopting one of two baby kittens that was found on the street by someone coming into the party.

2) Getting to go to support group that I “was” assigned by EAP (work) and now actually find to be very very helpful in my personal growth. I really didn’t want to be there because I had nothing but contempt for this group I felt had nothing to offer me. Instead this last group I went to on this past Monday night helped me talk about and work through my issues with “dating and disclosure” of my HIV status… It gave me courage enough to do the right thing in getting to a place of being spiritually fit.

3) Tonight’s Big Book Study meeting that I have gotten to go to for a few weeks with my Sponsor and also didn’t really care for in the beginning and now I am seeing and hearing a level of courage and degree of honesty that I am not accustomed to!  It really creates for an incredibly safe place for me to feel okay to “tell the truth” and share “what’s really going on!!!”  I have such deep respect for these guys in the meeting.  I also have the opportunity to watch a few of the guys continue to grow and that only gives me hope that I am growing just the same with each passing day that I stay clean and sober… Thank goodness, the nickname they gave me “Slipper” has been fading with each passing week!

Gosh… Each week has it’s ups and downs…  I am indeed noticing there are more ups than downs as of late…  One thing I definitely know is that I continue to build my already strong support group.  I get numbers by the dozens per week and find it difficult to prioritize who to call and reach out to ask for help, be of service and commiserate with.  Now, that is what I call a quality problem!!!

Okay, I get to wake up early in the morning tomorrow to support a friend who is speaking at a meeting.  That means I need to get to bed in a timely fashion tonight.

Things are looking up!  Again, I know it is because of your thoughts, prayers, love, support, hugs, calls, text messages, e-mails and just warm gestures of care and nurture that keeps me staying and keeps me available and available to pass the love forward.

Deeply grateful for YOU (yes you reading right now!!!),

Quoc

Hey folks, I found this poem on Hunter Allen’s AIDS Lifecycycle website: http://www.aidslifecycle.org/5372

So far away, doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn’t help to know you’re just time away

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
How I wish I could, but you’re so far away

One more song about movin’ along the highway
Can’t say much of anything that’s new
If I coild only work this life out my way
I’d rather spend it bein’ close to you.

But you’re so far away, doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn’t help to know you’re so far away

-Carol King

Hunter William Allen

November 17th, 1978 – April 24th, 2008

I also found a couple more very very special pictures of Hunter in his past ride on the Lifecycle:

You’re missed by sooo many down here on Earth…

Quoc