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 […]
I was recently reminded by a friend how cunning and baffling this disease is. Specifically, how easy it is to forget what works. To stop using the tools that work. It’s easy to forget I need them. To remember how bad it was. To remember to notice how good it is. To continue with this […]
A friend of mine just got sober again after a brief slip. It didn’t last too long, but it did get ugly. Of course it did. We tend to quickly pick up right where we left off, without the tolerance that years of substance abuse gave us. But for him, worse still were the feelings […]
Drinking was hard work, in the end. It wasn’t always that way. My drinking started out as an escape… it was relaxing and fun. I had too much fun drinking and I knew it, pretty early on. I knew there was alcoholism in my family and that the way I loved being loaded was a […]
COVID. What a trip this 2020-21 period has been. Tragic, and great. Frightening and peaceful. Enriching and sad beyond measure. My recovery has given me the peace of mind to not make a mess of this unfortunate time. That’s a blessing I cannot put into words. How profoundly gratifying is the knowledge that, during this […]
I’m a construction guy. In construction, the more you’re able to produce the better you are. Any time spent not producing is wasted time. I was taught early on to “Hurry every chance you get,” and “Blow and go.” It’s actually why I was well suited to construction, and vice versa. In fact, it’s indicative […]