Growth

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. ...

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. ...

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? ...

‌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. ...

If there is a place on earth for which I hold more disdain than Las Vegas, I have yet to see it. In truth, Vegas was never my place even when I was a drinker. Sure, I had some wild times here, and even a few that might be considered fun, but on the whole it’s loud and obnoxious and the main point in Vegas is debauchery. And still, I come to Vegas at least twice a year for my job. Believe me, it’s not by choice. It’s hard to be a sober guy in Sin City. ...

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. ...

“I only run if someone is chasing me, like you know, the cops.” I’ve said that thousands of times, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. Usually, I said it either when someone suggested that I go for a run with them, or when they were bragging about their latest extraordinary run. Fitting that I’d move to a running town, made famous by some fool who runs in all sorts of weather wearing nothing but a Speedo. One of the few successful shops on Main Street in Annapolis is a running store. It’s been there as long as I can remember. You can’t take a drive for more than 30 minutes without seeing at least 25 of those obnoxious 26.2 euro style stickers on cars. I’ve always enjoyed seeing the occasional 0.0 sticker, thinking to myself “I’m not the only one who doesn’t run.” ...

It’s 90°F and the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.My wife is headed out if town and I will have my eight year old son in my own this weekend. It’s going to be hot tomorrow too. Of course, the AC would go on the fritz today. Murphy’s Law. It would be easy to let it get to me and to loose my shit about it. In the past I would have bitched up a storm, maybe thrown my phone across the room, and definitely drank over it – because that was how I dealt with everything, whether it was good or bad. But not today. ...