Tag Archives: hiking

Alcohol Recovery Management or How to Trick Your Own Brain…

I just read an article by William White about the difference between Relapse Prevention (RP) and Recovery Management (RM). In a nut shell, he opines that one focuses on “deficits and vulnerabilities” and the other on “assets”. RP implies we are running from monsters (waking up the ghost?). RM suggests we are “being positively drawn […]

Read the Signs: Turbulent Water! Violent Waves!

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy… Gordon Lightfoot It would not have been a trip to Marquette without thinking of the time my brother almost got swept off a break wall there, during a storm. A couple of days ago I said the UP […]

How Do You Challenge Yourself? Is It Always Painful?

I have talked about this before, but I climb a set of stairs in Grand Rapids for exercise. It is part of what Craig and I call, “David’s Loop” – a walk that begins in front of David’s house, down the hill into town, over a bridge and past the statue of Jerry Ford in the […]

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling! (Things Happen, But It’s All Good…)

In The Bahamas they have an expression, “Things happen.” Those two little words seem to sum up the national psyche. They explain away all of life’s travails in the islands. The expression “things happen,” covers everything from the inappropriate behavior on a drunken night, to the irrevocable destruction of  force majeure. The words are uttered […]

What if Quitting Drinking Doesn’t Stick the First (Fifth, Tenth) Time You Try?

Try, try again… Get ready – I’m about to use climbing mountains as a metaphor for quitting drinking again. I can’t help myself, it’s too symbolic. Especially since the first time I tried to climb the “big hill” on my vacation in Puerto Rico last week, I failed. Let me explain. The road to get to the […]

Thinking About Quitting Drinking? It’s a Pretty Big Climb…

I am currently obsessing about climbing a set of stairs. The stairs begin at a feeder road to the expressway in Grand Rapids and end, like Jack’s beanstalk, high and steep enough above the ground to disappear into the early morning mist. I am obsessing (and I don’t use that word lightly), because this staircase is a […]

It’s Not About Getting Sober So Much as STAYING Sober…

I’m on the road, visiting addiction treatment centers and talking to professionals from every job description in the addiction field. What strikes me more than anything else is the diversity, the options one has to get and stay sober. Everything from white knuckled, twice a day AA, self policing; to 90 days or more in the […]

Sigh – As Autumn Leaves Fall I’m SAD…

Winds in the east, mist coming in,  Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin.  Can’t put me finger on what lies in store,  But I fear what’s to happen all happened before…  I don’t actually have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I have some version of old fashioned melancholia, I think. The exquisite, nostalgia of autumn in a […]

Exploring Sober Life in Fields of Poison Ivy…

I yack all the time about getting out and exploring in recovery. “Hike,” I say with conviction. “Fill your hands with a camera and your head with passion for something rigorous.” Climb a mountain, snowshoe across an unmarred wilderness! Take the path less traveled by! Adventuring Without Pepper Spray… The photo above was taken when […]

The Degrees of Gratefulness…

Do you ever think to yourself, “Ok, I did some lousy stuff when I was drinking, but just how much do I have to atone for my bad behavior, and for how much longer?” I mean I’m not the only one who was prideful or wasteful or an unpleasant drunk, right? Enough is enough – […]