I’m hung over. It was my birthday yesterday and the darling people I work with brought cupcakes. There were four left, in the baker’s box, for me to take home last night. I won’t disgust you with the details… The sugar settled in my joints and eyelids, and when I got up this morning, I felt puffy […]
Tag Archives: alcoholism
I made it through Halloween without eating a single piece of candy. I did eat a fortune cookie, which hinted I was going to meet an “important stranger who would change my life”, but fortune cookies don’t count. They don’t have any more sugar in them than toothpaste… If I had eaten any real candy, it […]
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 […]
I was walking with a friend of mine after work last night. He’s in recovery too – about the same length of time as me. We have both been sober long enough to have gotten past the acute, cravings stage, but recent enough to remember what it was like to have them. If you saw […]
Sing it to the tune of, “The Way We Were“. I was back in Jacksonville for a long weekend. I was reconnecting with my loved ones, helping my daughter Lauren move, and cleaning out one of my storage spaces. There is something metaphorical about spending the day in a place where the things you kind of want, but […]
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 […]
One of the things that has been wonderful about getting sober, is meeting new people online from around the planet. I have readers in 32 countries. Isn’t it incredible, when you think about the reach of the internet? I think of myself as a student of the world. I’ve been around. And when my friend Lotta Dann, who […]
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 […]