Sober living with Jesus

This will be our first Halloween in the new house.  We bought tons of candy to hand out, so we will be ready for just about anything.  When we lived in Taftville, we had at least 200 show up at the door.  Of course, that neighborhood has always been big on Halloween and even holds an annual parade hosted by the local Fire Department who hands out treats to the kids.  A nice thing to do, but it sure brings the kids in! I am not sure what Romeo is going to be up to this year -- hopefully he will get dressed up (I think he is planing to be Captain America again this year, since that particular character is the order of the day in recent times).  Whatever transpires, I will, of course, post pictures! Karen is still out of work and the situation is very frustrating for her and affects us both on different levels.  Most importantly, I hate to see her suffering as a result of this accident.  At least, it seems that there is some progress being made.  Hopefully, some resolution will be fort

A twelve step program I am fond of touts the mantra  “attraction rather than promotion.”   When I was younger and held prisoner by addiction to alcohol and other drugs, well-intentioned clergy, family, friends, doctors and law enforcement would try to promote the idea of either abstinence or self-control to me as I moved brazenly from one jackpot to another.  Usually I heard that I needed to “slow down” or get some sort of handle on things.  Once I was told by a psychiatrist that I needed to find a good woman to help calm me down and live an orderly life (in all fairness, when I think about the stuff I told him, I have to remember that you get garbage out if you put garbage in).  The magic of a recovery program happened for me when I heard somebody tell their story and I was able to relate to it.   The terminal uniqueness I suffered from had finally succumbed to a dent in its armor -in the reality that others may well understand exactly where I was coming from. What finally got me a

Step 11:  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him , praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Much of what I am going to write involves steps 2 & 3: coming to believe and then making a decision. to act on that new-found belief.  For me, step 11 involves continuing to build on that framework whose construction is begun in those steps. I took a guy I sponsor to a meeting last night that happened to deal with the eleventh step.  Present were the usual suspects -one of whom is a fairly well known card-carrying atheist in the local recovery community.  By his own admission, had he realized it was on the 11th step last night, he would have stayed home.  I have noticed in the past that he has his own particular brand of program, taking pieces from the Big Book and 12&12 and slightly re-writing some of it (carefully editing out the God part) to suit his tastes.  I sometimes struggle with

Sometimes, it seems like stuff piles up on you and then often will go smoothly for an extended period of time -with little to no worries.  I guess that’s just how things are – up and down.  How I handle those ups and downs is the subject of this post. Lately, things seem a little scary.  I’m sure some of it has to do with buying a house (made the first mortgage payment last night, as a matter of fact).  It’s a two-family home and my wife’s daughter lives upstairs with her boyfriend and our grandson (another one is on the way).  This arrangement actually means that we should live as cheaply as we did renting an old apartment, even after all expenses are taken into account -- while building equity in a home of our own that will hopefully be passed on to her daughter and family.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?  It does to us… and yet I can worry about every little thing .  My wife has some health issues that she needs to address that could cause her to go on disability or seek another line of

From Colossians 3:13-15 ( NKJV ): 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Ever have a long-standing resentment against another human being?  I have -and know from firsthand experience that it eats away at your soul like a cancer.  I find that I don’t feel so great after a while and get a little tired of carrying that individual around in my back pocket.  The funny part is, most of the time, they aren’t even aware of how consumed I am with them!  It all goes on inside my own mind and trickles down into my heart and the rest of my being. I have never been able to ask God to make me forgive somebody and have that happen without some footwork on my part.  A long time ago, I was told to pray for

This post is all about other places on the Web I have found that offer recovery resources worth checking out. I shall begin with a personal favorite: The Jaywalker .  This site offers all sorts of things from humorous to quite serious.  There are step guides, photos, funny things like “Rent-A-Sponsor” and links to other sites.  So please check out the Jaywalker. There are times when I can’t find the right medallion locally or need some sort of recovery-related gift or item outside of the Internet.  When this is the case, I turn to the Recovery Emporium .   I have ordered many things from them in the past with satisfaction.  Things were delivered quickly, in good shape and as ordered. If you are in Connecticut, a very valuable resource is the Area 11 Web site: www.ct-aa.org .  There you will find contact information for various committees, meeting schedules for the entire state and listings of local events by district (if somebody bothered to submit them).  A nicely done site with a

Image via Wikipedia For those who are unfamiliar with the term “Alkathon,” it refers to a 24 hour event that takes place during the holidays of either Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s eve.  Other people and fellowships may offer something similar (or the same) for holidays not mentioned.  For the sake of this post, I shall confine it to the aforementioned holidays and the name of “Alkathon.”  Alkathons are usually sponsored by a group or district in a particular area and any donations are used for the event and excess money is given to the district or group that sponsors it.  They are generally made up of continuous meetings and offer food and beverage at no charge to those who show up.  It is a safe place to find fellowship during what can often be a troubling time in the lives of sober people – especially those who are new and/or facing marital, family, health or employment problems. A key component of an Alkathon, aside from continuous meetings and fellowship, is food.  A

This morning’s reading in a meditation book I read called “In God’s Care” began with a quote from Anthony Dalla Villa: What you are is God’s gift to you; what you make of it is your gift to God." A friend of mine told me many years ago to take every situation and make it something good – especially if the situation is a bad one. There are ways to make the most of each situation; if nothing more, they are opportunities for learning and growth. I don’t mean to walk through life with rose-colored glasses and not acknowledge the bumps in the road along the way; rather, it is important to see things for what they are -and what can be done to make them work for the better good.

Rent a Sponsor An old one... but still very funny; actually it's a little sad at the same time, since there's people I know that would probably go for this service!

So I just got around to checking out the digital version of the Grapevine magazine.  I have been a subscriber to the audio edition for some time now and the printed edition over the years, as well. After checking it out, I emailed customer service with one important question: can I download the issues to my laptop’s hard drive for offline reading or do I have to view it solely on the Web?  I subscribe to PC World magazine and also get a couple of digital newspapers – in each case I can download them to the machine I wish to read them on for offline use.  One newspaper even allowed me the option of downloading it to my Kindle.  I saw no such choice with the Grapevine and am hoping that’s just a feature I don’t see because I haven’t opted for the actual subscription yet.  I’ll let you know what the answer is when my query is satisfied. By the way, even if the answer turns out to be the “no” I suspect it will be, I will continue to get the audio version of the Grapevine.  For 20 bucks

From the forward to the book Alcoholics Anonymous : To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book. I looked up the dictionary definition to the word precisely and found it to mean “indicating exactness…” That doesn’t leave much wiggle room, to be sure! That’s why I love to read the book and follow its directions as closely to the letter as possible. A good way to get to know the book is through regular attendance at a Big Book study meeting. With the profusion of reading material available to me in any given day via my Kindle or some Web site, it’s easy to overlook the Big Book or tell myself that “I’ll get to it later,” when in fact, I often won’t. A great resource for Big Book study is (and I hate to say it, but it’s not an A.A. site) anonpress.org – there you can order their study edition Big Books and also download an electronic version of the book for little to no cost, depending on the edition you prefer.

So often I hear people tell me "I'd love to, but I just don't have the time" or "I wish I could make the time" or "If I have the time..." We've all heard such statements time and time again and they're usually offered as an excuse to decline taking on a commitment. It's certainly not exclusive to 12 step fellowships, I see it in Church and other organizations as well. There always seems to be the few who "have the time" or "make the time" to do what needs to be done. It's interesting that those same people that have no time find enough to critique what everybody else is doing, isn't it? When I was drinking and drugging, I had plenty of time for that, along with work to pay for it and sometimes even other things -if they didn't interfere too badly with my party life. All of a sudden there's no time. Where did it go? I didn't sober up to sit around church basements every night and discuss the

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It seems that I never cease to feel the effects of AA's three legacies in my life on a daily basis. I hope and pray that I never do. I have been involved in service work of different sorts for the past decade plus and it has enriched my life in ways I could never put into words. I have learned from the many experiences I've had that I can disagree with others and still love them and feel good about myself; I don't need to take it personally when people feel differently about a topic than I do. I never need to feel alone because I am united within a fellowship of people who struggle as I do with not only their disease, but their humanity as well. It keeps the playing level and I need not regard myself as either better or worse than other member. This attitude spills over into my "everyday life." This unity is vital to the continued existence of the fellowship and, therefore, my very life. A key way to ensure the existence of the fellowship through a never end

I was born in a town called Norwich, CT in 1958, but basically grew up in a small New England coastal town in the 60's and 70's. I was the youngest son in a typical 3 child middle-class family. I shall offer a little background from my childhood before delving into what turned out to be years of drug abuse and hard drinking that took me to places I never dreamed I'd go. My sister did very well in school (was quick to pick things up and rather brilliant, although I would have never admitted it to her then). My brother, 9 years older than me, was something of a mystery because he was always off with his friends in undisclosed locations (I can't blame him - I doubt I would want my little brother tagging along very often). Of the three of us, he was the most independent and, as it turns out, the most successful in his career and business endeavors. For me, as a young man, I chased the allure of mediocrity - which I thought was easily obtainable and a safe place to be