Alcoholism on Walking in Sober Boots

Making Amends to Ourselves — a Path to Self Forgiveness

Sat, 05 Jun 2021 20:20:58 -0400

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of self forgiveness lately. I think that self forgiveness presents a challenge for many people, in and out of recovery. As humans, we often judge our own actions through an unrealistic lens and are particularly hard on ourselves.

Don’t Fake It — You Might Not Make It

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 10:56:05 -0400

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

— Polonius, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III

Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes comes in the context of finances and very likely was received by an Elizabethan audience as the recommendation to take care of one’s self first and foremost — Polonius being one of the villains of the story. Just two lines earlier, Polonius advises, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”

Courage, Rebellion, and a Universe that has Your Back

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 13:24:31 -0400

Something that isn’t talked about enough in the rooms of the recovery community — courage. It takes courage to admit that we have a problem. It takes courage to ask for help. It takes courage to leave behind old habits and old coping mechanisms. It takes courage to get honest with ourselves and others. It takes courage to get sober or get clean.

1827 — Five Years, One Day at a Time

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 10:59:41 -0400

One thousand, eight hundred, twenty-seven days without a drink — one day at a time. But who’s counting?

Well, I am.

Five years is a long-ass time without taking a drink, considering that I drank daily for seven years, and at least weekly for 25 years, leading up to September 23, 2015.

Grateful for Technology

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 20:11:10 -0400

Since March, I haven’t been to an in person 12 Step meeting. I’ve been to meetings, just not in person. And really, at this point even as we’ve had in person meetings open back up and some have gone to a hybrid mode (in person and zoom at the same time), I have no intention of going back for the foreseeable future. Not because I don’t need meetings, I do, but because I am not quite ready to go sit in a room with other people in recovery who may or may not be taking this pandemic seriously.

Strengthening Our Hearts

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 09:14:20 -0400

Of all the muscles in the body, the heart is probably the most essential. In conjunction with the diaphragm, the heart works to delivering oxygen and nutrients to every other system in the body by pumping blood 24 hours a day.

Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight

Wed, 06 May 2020 14:50:17 -0400

Are you Struggling?

Yesterday, one of my Twitter friends sent a tweet saying that she would be deleting her account because she was drinking wine again. A few weeks ago, another friend on Twitter posted that he’d relapsed and he would be deleting his account because he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t keep half-assing sobriety. Perhaps you have seen these messages. Perhaps you’ve sent a similar message. Perhaps you feel an incredible desire to pickup a drink or a drug. Perhaps, you are struggling.

Permission to Grieve

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 21:35:06 -0400

Before I begin, I want to say, categorically, that I’m not going to pick up a drink. When I think about the escape that alcohol provides, I can’t help but remember the emotional prison where it held me hostage for so long.

Having Fun in Sin City, in Recovery

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 09:52:15 -0500

Vegas is not my favorite place. I didn’t like Vegas when I was drinking and I find it overwhelming now as a sober guy. It’s really more about being an introvert than it is about the drinking, drugs, and debauchery that are on public display. I am sensitive to being overly stimulated and Vegas is a constant buzz of activity, blinking lights, and noise. And yet, I’ve found ways to go to Vegas and enjoy myself.

Having Fun Sobriety, as an Introvert

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 16:30:27 -0500

Earlier this week, I was at a discussion meeting where the topic was “having fun in sobriety.” Very quickly there were a number of shares that centered around making friends and doing activities with other members of a home group. Stories about coming into the rooms and quickly developing friendships with people who had common interests came up. People talked about going to a variety of activities including football games, movies, dinner, dancing, etc.

Feelings and Fentanyl

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:04:33 -0500

It’s been over a week since I was released from the hospital. Generally, I’m feeling much better. I’m still a little weaker than normal, a fact I was reminded of by a short hike yesterday.

While I was in the hospital I had some strong feelings. Feelings that I haven’t had in a long time. Old feelings that no longer serve me. And yet there they were. Gnawing at me from the inside.

Step 12: Give Others Hope

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 09:43:33 -0500

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Fundamentally, the 12 Steps are a roadmap for change as well as a guide for living a rich and full life. Whether one calls it a spiritual awakening or something else is immaterial. Some folks do feel that they have undergone a monumental psychic shift as the result of working through the steps. Others feel that the change is more subtle.

Step 11: This Too Is Prayer

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 10:35:16 -0500

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

“Seriously? We haven’t talked about God for a while so we better bring Him back into the picture.” This was how I felt when I looked at Step 11 for a long time. The only saving grace for me was that the payer recommended in the Twelve and Twelve was the Prayer of Saint Francis, which despite being a Catholic prayer, has always been a personal favorite and that peculiar word “meditation” in the step.

Step 10: Pay Attention, Admit When You’re Wrong, And Fix It If You Can

Mon, 30 Dec 2019 10:22:01 -0500

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

At this point in our journey we’ve presumably learned how to identify patterns of behavior and how they lead us to make mistakes as well as how to make amends for our failures. Step 10 asks us to practice these skills as we move through life.

Step 9: It Must Be More than an Apology

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 15:00:40 -0500

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Most of us are taught from an early age that we must apologize when we do something wrong. We hear the words of a parent to a toddler:

Step 8: Focus on What Matters

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 14:22:19 -0500

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Let’s be honest, making a list of people who we have harmed can be a daunting task for anyone. No one wants to think about the mistakes they’ve made in life and how these mistakes have impacted others. Many of us have made poor choices in our active addictions.

Step 7: Get to Work

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 15:02:43 -0500

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

If you’ve been along for this ride with me, you probably know it was a foregone conclusion that I rejected the notion of a deity removing my shortcomings when I got to this step.

Step 6: Willing to Work?

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 07:28:44 -0500

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

When I first read the steps, step six seemed to be the step that would cause me to go over the edge. On the surface this step appears to be pulled directly from a nineteenth century revivalist sermon. The language is extraordinarily troublesome for a guy like me.

Step 5: Unburdening Ourselves and Finding a Path To Forgiveness

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 13:33:17 -0500

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Early in recovery (and as a recovering Catholic), this step reminded me of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, better known as Confession. In my younger years this meant going into a stall where there was a thin veil between me and a creepy old man who wanted me to admit all my failures in life. It was particularly important to discuss impure thoughts and impure actions. That’s right, sex fantasies and masterbasion. This was supposedly the only way to actually commune with God, through another human being, in a creepy space, talking about creepy things. Is it any wonder that I became agnostic?

Step 4: Honestly Recognizing Our Own Humanity

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 07:26:45 -0500

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

This step scares most people. The language feels foreboding, heavy, daunting. It sounds really hard. And for many people it is really hard.

This step is all about getting honest with ourselves. Some of us have suffered grave consequences and some of us have not. But we all know in our hearts that our addiction has caused harm. And so we must get honest about what we’ve done in our lives. Honest about how we’ve hurt ourselves and others. Honest about how our addiction affected others in our lives.

Step 3: This is Going To Require Some Help

Mon, 11 Nov 2019 08:11:22 -0500

‌Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

I must admit that upon reaching this step my thoughts were something along the lines of this: “So, here we are. Face to face with the religion inherent in these steps. God. Him. I’ll never be able to deal with this.

Step 2: It’s Not What I Thought

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 13:59:15 -0500

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I cringed when I first read this step. In my mind, that capitalization of the word power clearly meant something. And that something was an interventionist God that was going to fix me. I was having none of it.

Step 1: No Control, Negative Impacts

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 17:45:32 -0400

This is the first post in a series that I’m working on about the 12 Steps and what they mean to me in my recovery.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and that our lives had become unmanageable.

Reflections on Counting Days after Four Years of Sobriety

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 19:53:58 -0400

Lets talk about counting days. Opinions vary about whether or not counting the number of days one has been sober is useful or not, just as opinions vary on so many other things in the recovery community.

August is the Cruelest Month, Mr. Eliot

Sat, 17 Aug 2019 09:33:24 -0400

It’s August. That’s part of it. I’m approaching four years of sobriety and I can feel the squirrels prancing around in my brain.

I didn’t recognize it at first. I knew that something was off, but it didn’t occur to me that this “offness” could be rooted in the fact that I’m nearing in on 1460 days without a drink. Actually 1461 because of leap year, but who’s counting?

Vigilance

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 13:20:00 -0400

A few months ago I was at a fixed menu dinner for work and I had glanced at the menu not really thinking about booze and agreed that it was fine for me — indeed it looked like a great meal with a number of delectable items that I’d surely enjoy. Everything was perfect until I put a spoonful of the vanilla ice cream that accompanied the pecan pie in my mouth. It was made with bourbon.

Triggers, Messages, & Flack Jackets

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 15:36:28 -0400

This one is gonna be messy – honest and messy, like me.

The rooms of 12 Step Fellowships are triggering for me. Not in a “I’m gonna need a drink” way, but triggering none the less. They have been since day one.

Stopping for Sam

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 10:12:38 -0400

If you follow me on twitter on Instagram then you know I’ve transformed myself from a relatively sedentary guy to a relatively passionate runner. In a little over a year, I’ve gone from barely being able to run for 90 seconds to running between 10 and 15 miles per week. Running has become a form of self care for me and I love it. I’m grateful that my body continues to heal from the damage I did when I was drinking.

Three Questions to Determine if You Have a Drinking Problem

Wed, 29 May 2019 14:42:53 -0400

On a number of occasions I’ve been asked by friends about how to determine whether or not they have a drinking problem. Many of them have expressed concern about the label, “alcoholic,” with good reason. It carries a stigma. It conjures up images of unshaven men in ill fitting clothes drinking from a paper bag in a back alley. It is a label of the problem not of a solution.

Gratitude on Thanksgiving

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 18:23:35 -0500

I have been reluctant to write. For months, I’ve felt I have little left to be said. I’ve struggled to post a single thought in a month. The truth is that the Promises have come true in my life — not always in the way I might have expected them to, or even hoped they would, but they have come true. I wear life like a loose garment most of the time today.