I hate confrontation, in basically any form. I hate it. Confrontation always meant I was in trouble when I was a kid. Trouble for not paying attention. Trouble for doing the wrong thing. I recently found out my mom kept a lot of my report cards from elementary school and junior high school. Nearly all […]
About five years ago, I had dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. We talked about what had been happening in our lives since the last time we had been together. He told me about all the amazing things he had been doing, and I told him how I went to rehab […]
Moral failings. Drinking made me feel like a failure. It made me feel weak and less than. My self-esteem was one of many things my disease stole from me, but feeling that bad about myself was probably the worst. I simultaneously thought, “I deserve better than this” and “I am getting exactly what I deserve.” […]
Sometimes I forget to be happy. It’s not that anything’s wrong necessarily. I just forget. I start to focus on the wrong stuff. To veer off course. I am far from alone in this. But, in my sobriety, I’ve discovered that happiness is an inside job, and for me, I’m the only one who can […]
Another friend died. As I understand it, he died sober. But he had stepped away from his recovery, and his recovery friends. My suspicion is that loneliness played a big part in it. But I’ll never know. His friends in recovery sure wish they could have been there for him. But he had pushed them […]
I am free. I am no longer a slave to alcohol. I never thought I would be able to say that towards the end of my drinking. In fact, I thought “the end” would be a very different thing. I was beyond hope. I had given up hoping to ever hope again. I was exhausted, […]
I will never have fun again. That’s what I thought would happen when I started to think I needed to stop drinking. The party would be over and I would never have any fun ever again. Poor me. I conveniently failed to acknowledge that for me, the fun had ended a long time ago. Truth […]
Do you know how long it takes to get 1 day sober? 24 hours or 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds… should I keep going? You see, before I went into treatment I could barely put together a couple of hours, let alone days of not drinking. I would set all these limits on my drinking. […]
All of my adult life I have been guided by the spirit. It used to be booze, now it’s God. I’ve been a searcher my entire life. Looking for acceptance, looking to belong if I felt lonely, to be left alone when overwhelmed. I have never been content with the way things were. Searching for […]
I have an old friend who’s dying. We called him “The Fool.” He was hysterically funny and would do anything for a laugh. We partied hard together for a while but we haven’t been close in a long time. It still sucks though. Alcohol ruined him and his liver has failed. He’s comatose and will […]