“Sir, Did the Rangers get ahold of you?” Me, stupefied, “Did the Rangers get ahold of me? Um, no, they didn’t.” “We’ve been trying to get ahold of everyone who rented a cabin, we have a problem, stinkbugs,” the kind woman with curly salt and sandy hair said as she motioned around the cabin that serves as the check-in station at the state park where I’d rented a rustic cabin for the weekend. The walls had many, but not an over abundance of, stink bugs crawling around. ...

Coming out publicly about my sobriety has changed my life. I wish I could tell you that I’d planned it out, that I gave it careful consideration, that I’d done it with a complete understanding of what I was getting into, but I can’t. That would be a lie. ...

If you’re like me, the idea of an interventionist god, who is going to fix you, who is going to save you, simply does not resonate. And if you’re like me, you were probably told that you don’t need to believe in God to practice the 12 steps. You may have been told that there is a difference between Spirituality and Religion. And when you insisted that there was too much God talk in the steps, you were probably pointed to the chapter “We Agnostics” in the Big Book. ...

I believe in facts; verifiable, indisputable, precise, truths. The sun rises in the East, at dawn, after the night. This is factual. I cannot disbelieve this truth. I can verify this with tools. Even on days when it is cold and rainy and I cannot see the sun, I know that it is true that it rose in the East, at dawn, after the night. I believe this because I have evidence. ...

I’m stealing this line from Laura McKowen’s Instagram post. Flat out thievery. It happens — the joy, not the thievery — from time to time. Just the act of being, a sudden awareness of how good this is — this life that I’ve found on the other side of fear — the fullness of my life without booze can be surprising. ...

 “So if we can keep them from going on—and maybe by talking to youth and telling them: ‘No good, really bad for you in every way.’ But if they don’t start, it will never be a problem.” — Donald J. Trump, August 8, 2017. As far was the public knows, this constitutes the entire White House strategy for addressing the Opioid Crisis in America. ...

I went to bed with feelings of fear and guilt. As the rhetoric toward North Korea from the White House fired up to unprecedented levels my lizard brain went kicked into high gear last night. I’ve been reading Ken Follett’s “Century Trilogy” and I’m on the last book Edge of Eternity which is about the Cold War period of the twentieth century. I’ve just gotten past the Cuban Missile Crisis in the book and can’t help but compare that crisis to our current crisis with North Korea. I’m not alone. ...

Yesterday, one of the #recoveryposse on Twitter asked “what’s your number one reason stay sober?” Without hesitation, my initial response was “Because I’m genuinely happy now even when things aren’t always great or don’t go my way.” ...

Anxiety. Fear. Agony. Those are the words that come to mind when I recall the first wedding I attended sober. It was a scant sixteen days after I’d given up the drink. I was still in withdrawal, and probably had no business going to a wedding of a fraternity brother. Still, I was committed to attending and even more committed to not drinking. ...

Monumental changes in one area of life often affect other areas in our lives, and so it’s probably no surprise that with the change of jobs I’ve not only been too busy to write, but I’ve also been a bit negligent with my meeting attendance. And as I’ve been negligent with attendance, I’ve felt myself drift further and further from my recovery program. And my resistant self has risen up to lead the committee in my head – the one that debates the importance of the program. ...

“What’s up with the water?” “What do you mean?” “Why aren’t you drinking.” “I don’t drink.” “Never?” “Never, not anymore.” This was going nowhere quickly. I was already frustrated with my new business partner and his behavior, but I took a few deep breaths. “I haven’t had a drink in over 18 months. If you’d like to have another SE like you last one, I can have a beer. If you like me to show up to meetings the way I have been, it’s best for me to have water.” His last systems engineer had a problem with the bottle and I knew it. He had been let go because of his habit of showing up to customer meetings intoxicated. I hoped that he’d get the message. “Why do you count?” I looked at our customer who sat across form me and could see that he sensed the tension. I could see that he was a bit uncomfortable. “What do you mean?” “Why do you count?” I had wondered whether or not my new business partner was clued in to my sobriety. I’d taken the job about three weeks prior and I was keenly aware of the fact that he’d talked to a lot of people that we both knew. I was also keenly aware that I’ve been public about my sobriety and that a simple google search would reveal a twitter account with links to this page. I was fairly confident that this line of questioning was coming from a place of knowledge of my status. While I’ve always been quite comfortable with my sobriety and I’ve been open and honest about it, I didn’t advertise it in the interview process — that didn’t seem prudent. I kept it under wraps and planned to share it at the appropriate time. This was not the appropriate time and I was getting irritated with it. “What do you want me to say?” ...

The first time the man who I would eventually ask to be my sponsor said, “I love you” to me I was a bit stunned and I managed to stammer that I loved him too back, even though I wasn’t sure that I wanted to say the words — not because I didn’t love him, but because it felt awkward. ...

Time flies when you’re busy. My last post was written while I was in Asheville, NC. Upon our return I jumped into the mix of my new job. I am currently drinking from the firehouse at work and have had very little time to write. ...

Several years ago, my wife said to me, “I’d spend my last dime on travel” and I was dumbstruck. Certainly if I were down to my last dime I wouldn’t spend it on travel. Certainly I’d spend it on food, or better yet, beer. This was before I’d gone off the rails - in fact well before I’d gone off the rails. But that was my thought. ...

Primal. Visceral. Instinctive. Fear lives in the oldest part of our brain, the limbic system. The lizard brain. Fear lives in the same part of the brain that governs addiction and so it is not surprising that fear and addiction often go hand in hand. Or that addiction and trauma have such strong links. ...