When I was in college my best friend tried to get me to start running with him. And I did go for a few excruciating runs with Gus at the IM building and around the town of State College, in the snow and ice. At the time, I was completely out of shape, drank nearly every day, and smoked about a pack to a pack and a half of Camel Lights a day. I had no business running. ...
This weekend, I’ll be heading up to State College, PA for the first time since I got sober for the annual Blue White weekend. For those of you who aren’t Penn Staters, this is a spring scrimmage football game complete with tailgating and about 100 thousand other Penn State fans. It’s also one of the last big weekends for Seniors who are getting ready to take their finals and graduate. ...
The support that I receive from people who read my blog and tweets is simply amazing. I am always humbled when people who I’ve never met in real life take the time to read my blog and offer suggestions to me when I clearly need help. I am grateful beyond words for the support that pours in when I open my heart and share my struggles here. ...
The past few months have been a struggle for my son as well as for my wife and me. We have been working to address some challenges he faces with ADHD through medication for about six months. We have also been working with a therapist and attempting to work with his school during this time as well. Things have gone well with the therapy but the other fronts have been marginal at best. ...
Friday,6:58 AM I woke with a start. The alarm had been snoozed twice, maybe three times, and I had fallen back to sleep. It was one of those times when you wake up and you aren’t sure if you’ve missed your alarm or not. I flipped over quickly. ...
And, just like that, Christmas is nearly over. All the build up, all the anticipation, all the angst, and it’s over in less than a day. I have remarked to friends in the past that the entire fall sometimes feels compressed, as if time gets accelerated and there’s not enough of it between September and December. As if the entire fall is a run up to Christmas. And then, it’s over. ...
I’m sitting in the local urgent care center with a washcloth wadded up and held in place by a pair of boxer briefs. This is meant to stop the flow of blood that would otherwise have stained my jeans on the way here. I’ve done something dumb and it’s hard to believe that I still do these kinds of dumb things. ...
The past week and a half have been difficult. Even though the horror of Las Vegas didn’t directly impact me, it certainly made me pause, and certainly made the media go into it’s usual frenzy. Closer to home, I had my weekend plans go sideways, not once but twice — first we couldn’t go camping, then even the short hike I planned got scrapped. Monday of this week started with its own insanity. As I dropped off Mr. Grey at school, I looked at my calendar on my iPhone and discovered that didn’t have the free morning I thought I had, but rather had back to back meetings starting in 45 minutes. The first one was at a customer’s site. I was un-showered and unshaven. It was a mad dash, but I made it, clean and shaven. That afternoon, we discovered that my son had brought home lice, a discovery which would send me to the drug store, and result in him staying home for a few days. While these problems aren’t insurmountable, it’s felt a bit like I can’t get a break lately. In times like these I’ve learned to remind myself of the things for which I am grateful. ...
“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. ...