It was a nightmare. A waking nightmare. A waking nightmare from which I could not be roused. That was my life before. I have difficulty remembering (with sufficient force) how awful it was. Remembering the relentlessness of my alcoholism for the last five years of my disease is heartbreaking. Even at the time, I felt […]
As I understand it, an average person stops drinking when they feel like they’re losing control. Two or three drinks and I’ve heard them say, “Whew, I’m starting to feel it. I had better stop.“ I never said that. Worse, I felt out of control when I wasn’t drinking. That two or three-drink feeling was […]
Here’s a thought; if alcohol did for everybody what it did for me, everyone who tried it would become an alcoholic! What I mistakenly believed alcohol gave me was what I had always been searching for… wellness, quiet, and satisfaction. I think we are all searching for these things. Drinking seemed to give me that. […]
Everything looks like a nail if all you’ve got is a hammer! Drinking was my go-to for anything life threw at me. It became my only tool. When something good happened, I drank. When something painful happened, I drank. When I was afraid, I drank. When I was celebrating, you get it. Drinking was my […]
We’ve recently been working with a family who has been loving their son to death. They have been helping him when he gets in a bind due to his drinking and drug use, helping him carry his water now and again. Unfortunately, these binds are happening more and more frequently, and the severity is also […]
20 years. I’ve been sober for 20 years. That’s 7300 days, one day at a time. That’s longer than I drank. It’s unfathomable. I give full credit to the fact that I have consistently worked a program of recovery for 20-plus years now. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but I’ve never stopped. My long-term sobriety is […]
Yesterday, my buddy and I got to help change the trajectory for a couple of young men. It’s impossible to say for sure that the changes were for the good, but I believe it was. I think we all believe it was. Both of these young men had the courage to tell us some very […]
Of all the terrible things in my life, most of them never happened. I was bullied a couple of times as a child. Nothing physically violent, but the imaginings these events inspired sure were. If you could calculate the amount of time spent in my head, ruminating over what had happened and/or worse, planning my […]
A family is like a mobile. You know, the fragile, suspended, moving sculpture you might hang over a baby’s crib. The kind that gently moves with the breeze. In the family of an alcoholic or addict, this mobile is named “Dysfunction.” This mobile is inelegant, some pieces taking on much more than their share of […]
I am a fortunate man, I have a swimming pool. One recent windless morning I dove in, the surface perfectly still. Underneath, I began to rise ahead of my wake. Opening my eyes. I could see almost nothing of the outside world; however, I could clearly see the reflection of my hands and arms on […]