Tag Archives: stop drinking

Training My Brain to Think Positive…

  I was thinking about how easy it is to go from positive to negative thoughts. It’s almost like a default with me. Everything coming up roses? Focus on the dirt. I am actually training myself to think in a positive manner, by doing some brain exercises at work. We are implementing My Brain Solutions  and I […]

Plow Horse Therapy

I’m not talking about Equine Therapy, folks. A few weeks ago, I was at an old-fashioned country fair in Ellsworth, Michigan and they had what was billed as a “horse pull” in a park on the outskirts of town. If you have never seen a horse pull before, it involves teams of enormous, draft horses; […]

Recovery Question Number 1: Are You Happy?

Last night on the phone (after we dealt with yet another unintelligible crisis in her young life) Ellie asked me, “Miss Marilyn, are you happy?” I think that may be my new favorite interview question. It stopped me in my tracks. Recently, I have gotten comments from people who tell me my life in recovery finally […]

8 Reasons to Give a Wide Berth to the Summer Booze Cruise…

  I didn’t realize it was the first time I had been on a boat since I’ve been sober, until I was on a boat looking at the big white cooler that, on most watercraft, holds cold beer and wine… It was the first time in three years I was going for a boat ride that wasn’t a […]

Music Therapy

If you look closely, there are coyote decoys on the shore… I stopped by the office yesterday and when I came out (on my way for a walk) there were small balls of ice falling from the sky. I felt like Henny Penny. I promise I am finished with metaphors and misery about the cold, but ice […]

The Skunk at the Dinner Party

After being a drinker, is it ever natural to be at a dinner party without a glass of wine? I’m asking, because even though I do not crave a drink anymore, the thought of drinking flickers across my mind whenever I am in a setting where I would have been drinking, when I was drinking. […]

Eating Disorders + Addiction (How Do You Kill the Hydra?)

That’s me on the left – I’m like, “I am NOT going to eat 4,000 calories of candy in one sitting – burn the head after I cut it off!!!” and the other guy is like, “Wait. Did you say 4,000 calories?” and I’m like “Don’t worry – I took Correctol” and he’s like, “Yuck…” […]

Drinking Dream (Nightmares)…

Yikes – I had a drinking dream! Whoa. I have to hurry to get this down. And this is not going to be some snippet of a pretty memory. Because I had a drinking dream last night. I was at a dinner party with a bunch of people and everyone was pouring drinks and I […]

The 7 Reasons Recovering Alcoholics Drink Club Soda

Laura was sitting on the couch watching Orange is the New Black with Lauren and me, and there was an AA meeting scene (one of the inmates had gotten a little too dependent on her handmade moonshine). Laura turned to me and asked, “Why do you guys drink Club Soda? I mean is there a reason […]

Alcohol Moderation Management – Bet You Can’t Drink Just One…

  Remember the old Lays Potato Chip commercial – Bet you can’t eat just one? Change “eat” to “drink” and it could be a great commercial for a rehab center, or a moderation management organization. I think the question arises in the dark mind of every recovering alcoholic at least once, “As soon as I […]