Four years ago I swallowed my last pain pill. Christmas night. After days of trying to look past the glowing orange pharmaceutical bottle on the kitchen counter. At Chris’s parent’s home in Pennsylvania. My mind a mess. Months of heavy anti-psychotics, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication. A pill to focus. One to calm. Another to balance. To block
Today is my birthday. I am forty one years old and ecstatic to have reached this age. On Saturday, I will be six years clean and sober. I say that with confidence because I cannot remember the last time I craved a drink or a drug, or even romanticised the notion of using either. During
I’m approaching another sobriety anniversary, and God willing I will celebrate twenty four years on the twenty eight of January. What a ride it has been for sure. I finished my final project for my Master’s degree in Advanced Studies of Human Behavior last Spring. I am an A student, and I put my all
In 4 days I will be clean and sober for 9 months. I never thought I could get a day sober much less this long. And it is absolutely mind blowing to me how much my life has changed. I am doing things I never imagined I would do in my life, especially after losing
“My name is Damien, and I’m an alcoholic.” This is the conventional way to introduce oneself at a meeting of the fellowship. It bugs me. The very first time I said these words they were incredibly powerful and liberating — when I finally said them, my surrender was complete. But as my sober time increases,
Happy New Year! A changing of the calendar page, turning over a new leaf, the hope of a new beginning. There is hope but there is also the illusion of imagining that a future day could mean more than the embrace of the present in a new or more faithful fashion. I am a rebel.
I learn so much from people at meetings. A month or so ago we were talking about intentions, and a woman said she “found the results of her intentions in her crisper bin.” We all burst out laughing, because we all know that drawer in the fridge—the one with exotic vegetables: celery root, kale, mustard
The illusion of uncertainty masks the depravity of the fear I feel locked in the void of not knowing but not wanting to stop either Looking out at the endless rain and mucky landscape there is always something else to ponder aways a sense of not being there yet And not knowing where the
Last night I sat in a circle with 124 other women. The questions were asked. What are you done with? What are you ready to scrub off yourself? What have you processed and cooked and beat to death this year? What are you ready to throw on the compost pile. I stress the word compost
