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The Last Chance Texaco
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I'm a recovering alcoholic and crystal meth addict. I have recovered by taking the steps suggested in Alcoholics Anonymous. By taking a few simple steps I have found a new and better life and a relationship with my Creator and I write about that he
Recent Posts Tagged With 'hope'
Winter Night
My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does. December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old. My &...
Back from the dead
I am really feeling grateful for my life today. And I’m feeling especially grateful for the time that I spent with my sponsor up in Atlanta and everything that has followed. Friday night I got to take one of my favorite people, Jill, the frie...
Back from the dead
I am really feeling grateful for my life today. And I’m feeling especially grateful for the time that I spent with my sponsor up in Atlanta and everything that has followed. Friday night I got to take one of my favorite people, Jill, the frie...
The Scarlet Letter
A. Atheist. Two and a half years sober and I find myself so fucked off about the conception of god that I got sober with that I can’t live joyfully. In all likelihood I just haven’t given myself enough time to heal or something but at th...
It’ll be just like starting over.
Nobody told me that, and honestly, I’m not sure I would have been able to hear them if they did, but man-o-man it is an important thing to realize. That’s my experience anyway. You see, this isn’t my first rodeo. I had over 2 years sobrie...
Day One
It’s the first day of recovery, again, for my first sponsee, Joe, who had the courage this morning, to admit that he relapsed. Perhaps it wasn’t courage really so much as the absense of an adequate denial. And perhaps it’s not t...
Paul
I have learned that it is not a great idea to move during the final week of a class. I am not done moving. I am behind on my homework. I’m tired. Class got out at 7:40, which meant that I could make it to my favorite meeting. Behind on ever...
Running Up That Hill - 2 Years Sober
After taking a coin for my 2nd year sober (today) in a meeting tonight I was surprised to hear descriptions of me as I was during the first part of my recovery. My first sponsor’s wife said that she had been scared of me. “Don’t...
The 2nd Christmas
Finally. The days are getting longer. I start getting sad in September when the color of the light changes. More than any other month, bad things have happened to me in December. Apprehension and all the demands for merriness combine to make me...
My Shining Palace
I don’t know how I’ve never happened on this verse before. I’m not a huge Millay fan. That probably has something to do with it. I heard a recording of her reading her own work one time and I couldn’t stand her voice. ...
Choosing Between Love and Fear
I was reading this post over at myOutSpirit.com about an article in the September issue of Out Magazine which considers how online cruising has changed gay urban social life by, for example, driving human interactions from physical spaces to virtual ...
WWJD? What the Waltons taught me about recovery.
Like many from my generation, especially those of us that were or are Mormons (LDS), I grew up watching The Waltons, a 1970s television series centered around the titular family growing up in a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and...
Nausea
I can't. I can't do it. I couldn't do it so much that I ditched it and went to a noon meeting, and at that meeting (which was a 12x12 study on the 8th tradition) one of the old, old timers said, "If your job turns your guts inside out, get a new jo...
Enjoy the Ride
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” -Joseph Campbell I love this picture. I love it on several different levels. It just this second occurred to me, for example, that I’ve never se...
Score Cards Read Zero
Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves “problem drinkers,” but cannot endure the suggestion that they...
Your Image of Me Is What I Hope to Be
“[H]e had been using crystal meth constantly for several weeks, and was suffering from severe paranoia as a result, when he visited MyOutSpirit.com and saw the photo contest slogan, “Remember who you want to be.” He says that was th...
The Tao of Texaco
Yield and overcome; bend and be straight; empty and be full; wear out and be new; have little and gain; have much and be confused. Therefore wise men embrace the one and set an example to all. Not putting on a display, they shine forth. Not justifyin...
Sideways
“There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 58 That pretty much describes me at any given point in my histo...
There’s a Light in the Darkness
We should learn just to stick our hand out and whoever it touches that is alone, engage them, in whatever way is helpful. There is joy to be had, in that. - Anonymous It’s not surprising that with the new year there are an unusual number of &...
Filling in the Blanks
Happy New Year! 2007 was a watershed year for me. For all it’s hurdles and the effort that it required, 2007 was an amazing year. When we rang it in I was still a few days from becoming sober. Everything I had tried had only earned me a sea...
Get Up, Suit Up, Show Up
We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of...
Holiday Follies
All men may err; but he that keepeth not his folly, but repenteth, doeth well; but stubbornness cometh to great trouble. -Sophocles, Antigone It is hard to understand how someone so clever, so witty, so completely charming and attractive as I am, so...
Easy never did it.
“Easy doesn’t do it. Easy never did it. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy.” - Unknown That’s one of the mottoes I (pretend to) live by. There are others, of course, important ones. The more important they are...
Ready. Set.
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - C. S. Lewis My roommate is writing a book. Not today. Today she’s working on writing exercises, learning the craft, reading a ton of important literature. Early in...
The Way Things Are
“Things are the way they are because I have deliberately made them that way. That’s what distresses me.” That’s quite an indictment. And so completely true, even though I don’t want to own all of it. Marc said somethin...
On a brighter note
I’ve had a lot of 60 day chips in my long and execrable career as an addict. I’ve never had one to pass along though. Happy Birthday, Joe! ...
Default Setting
It’s amazing to me, I guess it shouldn’t be at this point in recovery, but it’s amazing to me how quickly I return to my default setting; to return to the way of thinking, if not behavior, that always gets me back to where I came fr...
“so many problems he despaired of ever solving them” p.XXVII
I am, now, officially freaked out. Between yesterday and today I have accumulated enough ‘Close, But No Cigar’ kind of experience to have convinced myself that I am, like an old boyfriend once said, “a complete failure as a human b...
You’ve decided you want what I have? Are you sure?
I went to Gooding recently to speak at the treatment center I went to, which in and of itself was really cool. Even cooler is the fact that out of that someone decided that they wanted me to show them how I’ve stayed sober. And even cooler th...
Our primary purpose
is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics (and addicts) achieve sobriety. When you’re first coming in, when you’re on the morning side of the mountain, tradition 5 seems like the dumbest or most obvious thing in the world. Duh. Ther...
