I joined the Grand Rapids YMCA two months ago. I just went for the first time (after 3 payments of $55) yesterday. My school of thought about exercise regimens has always been, “Do not turn up for Pilates class until you have lost 5 pounds or are an expert at Pilates.” I wouldn’t want to start an […]
Category Archives: Stop Drinking
I’m not finished with 2016 yet. I feel the need to recap or amalgamate or conclude. So many positive things happened this year (last year?) and I don’t feel like I’ve been properly grateful. Because it’s not like I am thankful every day for the resurrection I have experienced. I’ve been kind of busy. And […]
I was sitting in the dry cleaner’s parking lot yesterday and my young friend Ellie called me. I don’t hear from her much these days. It feels like there is something missing in my life, like I forgot the pearls I was going to wear on the kitchen table. Or there is a needful thing in the pocket […]
We’ve been talking about passion at work recently. Not around-the-water-cooler gossip about weekend liaisons. But the kind of passion that has you up at 6 AM testing out your hiking boots and waiting for the sun to come up. Or waking like a kid on Christmas, remembering you got those new paints and brushes. Being so excited about an […]
I saw the movie “The Girl on the Train” twice last week. I had read the book – it was a gift from my dear friend Nick, who is not alive anymore to give me gifts, so it has special meaning. Special meaning too, as the main character is a female alcoholic. It would be […]
There is a group in Jacksonville called the Saltwater Cowgirls who partner with my friends at Lakeview Health. They call it surf therapy: providing lessons in surfing and life for the residents in addiction treatment at Lakeview. I lived on the ocean in Jacksonville Beach, but I have never surfed. I am not a strong swimmer, […]
Have you ever had a person say something to you jokingly, and it’s kind of mean, but funny? And you let it slide like a boss, because you know how to laugh at yourself? But years later you still think about it every once in a while? I remember a long time ago, I was wearing a […]
Nice monkey… I think it’s universal that people who are in active addiction feel a sense of urgency. There is always the need for “more”. It’s why we hide wine bottles in winter boots. It’s why we look around sheepishly, and polish off the dregs of other people’s drinks while they are in the bathroom. There is […]
I have been in Grand Rapids for exactly six months. I arrived in the middle of a snow storm, like the girl in the opening act of a Broadway musical. 42nd Street or A Chorus Line – my suitcase full of sweaters, bauble hats and high hopes. The glove box free of screw top, wine shooters and Slim Jim […]
Remember the movie where Sandra Bullock gets drunk at her sister’s wedding, steals the limo and crashes into a house? I am going to a wedding today, and I do not intend to do that. Nor do I expect to drink up the dregs of liquor left by tablemates when they get up to dance. I won’t go to […]