Something strange happened to me today. I forgot to take my Suboxone.

I had a busy morning. Little C’s friend slept over last night so I had 2 kids to get ready for school today. As soon as they boarded the bus, I hurried to get myself ready for school too.

Spent the rest of the morning and afternoon shuffling from one administrative office to another trying to find funding for this one last class I need to finish community college. I still don’t know if my class is paid for or if I’m going to have to hit up the bank…

Last Friday was my birthday.  As a gift, my son gave me a 3 day silent meditation retreat entitled “Awakening to the Heart of Wisdom.”  It was an amazing experience where, for a brief period of my life, there was no time but the present.  We did everything “mindfully”, including chewing, walking, showering, sitting, more sitting, more sitting, brushing our teeth, putting on our shoes, even going to the bathroom.  I had an amazing experience one morning with an english muffin.  It took me 20 minutes to mindfully eat that thing, noticing how the texture changed every time my teeth…

A church I passed posed this question on it’s sign, “What is fair?” I’ve been pondering that question ever since. I guess that’s exactly what the church hoped would happen. What is fair? I’ve known since an early age that “life” was not the correct answer. Tonight, I was reminded of that with more clarity than I ever needed.
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My friend Jeannie is dying. My friend Jeannie, whom I know from the rooms of recovery, entered hospice today. My friend Jeannie was just diagnosed with inoperable, deadly, liver cancer a couple months ago. She may not make it to Christmas. My…

I’m working, writing restaurant reviews, and watching Tyra. The Kardashian Sisters are on today. I’ve never seen their television show before, as I don’t have cable…but I’ve heard of them, mostly of Kim Kardashian because she has a sex tape. I can have whatever I want on television, since he’s not here.

My dogs are outside, barking. I let them in and out as I please. I can go get in bed or not. I can wear clothes or not. I can talk on my phone or not.

I asked him to leave on Sunday night to give me a bit of a…

I have heard the expression “Fake It Til You Make It” at several meetings. I never really understood how it would help me. I’ve never been comfortable with the “faking it” part, although I have done it a lot during my life.

I think that it’s better to just walk the walk and work the program, keeping honesty in mind, rather than having the “liar” alarm go off in my head.

Nonetheless, I felt like a fake at a meeting on Friday. I didn’t want to go to the meeting, instead I wanted to go home, make it an early evening, and…

photo found at Epicly Later’d

Recently, news of a new social drinking game fancied by our Canadian neighbors has been hitting the wires.  This news is sparking concern of binge drinking at just the time that the Amethyst Initiative here in America is inciting debate over lowering the drinking age–specifically because of binge drinking.

This new drinking game awards “wizard status” to anyone who consumes enough cans of beer to exceed their height. The rules are simple. Every beer that is consumed is taped to the one before it. Eventually the beer cans stack up and form a walking stick, which is…

by William C. Moyers

Another star has fallen from the heavens of Hollywood, and it hasn’t taken long for the inevitable question to follow: Why doesn’t Mackenzie Phillips get it?

I am not in a position to defend Phillips, who reportedly has entered a treatment program after being arrested last month for possession of illegal drugs at Los Angeles International Airport.

But unlike Lindsay Lohan, whose trials and tribulations in the tabloids have included repeated trips to and from treatment during the past two years, I know Phillips. And while I haven’t seen her in almost a decade, to me she never shirked…

I am all mixed up right now.

My partner has been unemployed for a long time. He tried to start a business and it failed, which resulted in debt and depression. Just as he seemed to be recovering from the depression, he broke his ankle really badly, which resulted in disability and more depression. The ankle-break happened a year ago this July, and while he is walking ok now his spirit just barely seems to be on the mend.

I have been struggling my way through college for the past several years, off and on. I was doing well, going full-time and…

About a month ago, I wrote a post here about my trials and tribulations with dating again. Well, the saga, which I thought was over, continues. And I need some help on this one!

In a nutshell: cool dude asks me out via online dating service. Met for coffee and a walk. Dude revealed that he had “quit drinking” years ago, but he doesn’t really work an AA program, although he attends meetings “with friends” sometimes. I’m a bit concerned. I did it that way for awhile, too. I was still an asshole–maybe more so without alcohol! Made more plans for…

Do you know that in all the times I read Step 1 over the past five years — including last week when I was working Step 1, and all the times Step 1 was read in meetings, and all the times my husband and I discussed Step 1, and even in my writings about Step 1 — I always had it in my head that Step 1 read “our lives have become unmanageable” and not “our lives had become unmanageable?”

There was no doubt my life had become — in the past (less than) perfect tense — unmanageable. When I found…

“You have a thigh, but you are not your thigh,” our yoga teacher explained. She was coaxing us deeper into our Warrior stances. My thigh was talking to me. It was telling me not to push further. I told it to be quiet…that it was going to get stronger if I kept pushing. I have a thigh, but I am not my thigh.

Often in yoga class, I find tools that translate well to the rest of my life. The teacher was encouraging us to push our limits with our bodies, but that phrase she used…You have a thigh, but you…

Although it’s been five years since I found out about my husband’s sex addiction — five years that I have been working on my own codependency — I am only just now working the steps for the first time. I’d like to say that I’ve finished Step 1, since I’ve started working on Step 2 already, but it doesn’t feel entirely finished to me yet.

Oh, I’m fine with Step 1a. I’ve admitted that I’m powerless over my husband’s addiction, over others’ addictions, over others in general. Yep, I’m powerless. I get it. I’m good there and have been since day…

I have felt on edge recently. A lot of my edginess started with hurricane prep around here. I worked in a cave while the shutters were up. That started the edginess.

There was the hype about Hannah and then there was the reality of Ike. I watched the news coming in from a station in Texas like I was transfixed. It felt like watching a train wreck–I wanted to look away but couldn’t.

Then there is my edginess over the political process and the bad economic news that keeps coming in waves: Freddy Mac, Fannie May, banks folding, jobs folding, the market…

On Saturday, September 27, 2008, there will be a massive rally for recovery on The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.  If you’re anywhere near (or far) from Brooklyn, mark this date on your calendar.

The event begins at 8:30 a.m. and we’ll be there filming the whole event.  Come buy a t-shirt, get a free wrist band and share your story with the millions of others who have something to celebrate!

See you there!

TSR Team

An urgent call to action from Faces and Voices of Recovery:

Dear Recovery Advocate,

We need your help once more because the US House of Representatives is likely to vote on what is now named The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act as early as Monday.

The language in the bill is the compromise that was worked out by House and Senate negotiators earlier this summer. The House leadership plans to bring the bill up under what is called the Suspension Calendar - there is only 40 minutes of debate, the bill can’t be amended and a…

from DailyOM.com

September 18, 2008
Exploring the Soul
Living a Spiritual Life

Throughout the journey from birth to death, many people choose to question life, strive for improvement, seek out knowledge, and search for the divine. Simply put, this is the essence of spirituality. One’s spiritual practice can take on many forms, because embracing the spiritual is a very personal pursuit. While many people do relate their spirituality to a God or Goddess, this quest for the divine, or oneness with the universe, always springs from within. It doesn’t matter where you find your spiritual path. We are all fundamentally spiritual beings and the…

I’m trying to remember the things that make me happy, as I’m having a hard time being happy lately. I thought I’d put together a list, and then I’d be able to reference it. When I’m fretting and obsessing and living in my head, I can look here and remember things to get out it.

There are good things still. There are.

• Yoga makes me happy. Feeling my body getting stronger and quieting my mind feels good.
• Meetings make me happy. I like seeing my friends in recovery, and I like working through the things we work through. I like the person I’m…

BIG NEWS!!

Puck’s running again!
For those of you unaware, Puck is my beautiful boy, i.e. black lab. He is also my running partner–has been since he was 6 months old. Puck ruptured his left ACL and tore the lateral meniscus while playing ball–his FAVE–on Memorial Day Weekend. One week later, the torn meniscus was resected, and he underwent ACL reconstruction. It was awful. He was in a lot of pain, and rehab has been long and difficult. He’s had trouble gaining full flexion in his reconstructed knee, which means he’s also had trouble re-building the muscles in that leg. He’s been…

I can’t keep up with myself lately. I’m in love with my husband. I hate my husband. I want him close to me. I want him to go far away.

I don’t know what I’m thinking when. I don’t know if I’m hurrying home or driving slowly to avoid him. I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t want to go to bed. I don’t want anything.

It’s been kind of a weird week, and I’m not sure why. I had a long night a week ago, and it’s like I’m still reeling from it.

I am becoming increasingly aware of…

I don’t remember the last time I got drunk. I remember almost the last time, but not the last time.  I can’t even be sure about my last drink.  I know that during my 3 year Carnival of Crystal Meth I had a few drinks. The weird thing is that I had a period of sobriety before that 3 year relapse and somewhere in there my taste for alcohol vanished.  I was once a daily drunk, but somewhere in the years I was dry the feeling that alcohol brought me became one of unease. I didn’t feel like I was…

Today I had some work I wanted to avoid, so I opted to use the time completing a chore–one that had been put off for awhile now. Nice cycle, huh?
But, it was the perfect temperature out to mow the lawn, so I did. I mowed a pretty Peace sign right into the lawn; my neighbors gawking skeptically. See, I’m new around here. But you know what–it’s my lawn and it’s a damn good way to showcase my beliefs.

I realized that was probably the last time I’ll mow the lawn until May, because I live in Maine. Then I realized that…

I am working the 12 Steps around my codependency for the first time since discovering my husband’s addiction five years ago. I have been resistant to working the steps for various reasons for years. When I first started going to S-Anon meetings, I didn’t want to work the steps because I didn’t think I had a problem. Other people might have a problem, but I wasn’t like them. My problem was my husband.

I slowly began to accept that I did have underlying problems that brought me to my marriage. I wasn’t a healthy person who was duped into marrying a sex…

It seems like months since I wrote anything - and that is because it has been a long time since I wrote anything. As part of developing this site, my job title has included everything from being a part of a national web cast funded by the federal government, to running to the store for milk for our coffee. I have been a gopher, a porter, a day care provider, a writer, a researcher, a spokesperson, a bookkeeper, a liason, a professional representative, a lecturer, a storyteller, a dog walker, a shoulder to cry on, a cheerleader, a pit bull…

Tobacco products are the only products legally sold in the United States that are known to be deadly when used as directed .

That being the case, how can anyone who is still using them claim to be in recovery from addiction? Who but an active addict would do that?

Addiction is addiction, and denial is denial. Get over it. I’m not saying we have to quit everything all at once, but if we’ve been off the sauce or drugs for more than a couple of years and are still smoking, we needn’t be bragging about how we’re recovered” addicts. We ain’t there…

Since being in the program, I know that I haven’t been totally present in a couple of relationships. One has been with my wife, who I love but have also pulled away from in recent years. I think it’s mainly been to protect myself and make myself less vulnerable. Sometimes my body has been present and my mind hasn’t been. Sometimes my mind has been present but my body has shut down.

I think that at the time I entered Al-Anon, I needed time out in the relationship. Maybe it was appropriate and healthy to shut down at that time. As…

A while back, I wrote a post here which was titled, I Suck at Meditation. It’s true. I do. If you’re interested, check out that post, and you’ll realize I’m not lying. However, today I realized I was actually performing an act of meditation while on my run! Mindfulness is probably more descriptive of what I was doing, but mindfulness is meditation, right? Since I’m part of the running, health and fitness group on this site, I thought I’d share my mindfulness technique. I used it to help me get through today’s tough workout. If you’re just starting out with…

People sometimes say that taking Suboxone just delays the inevitable. They assert that Sub is just as addictive as the drugs I’m trying to quit, that there is no “easy way out” and I will eventually have to suffer through withdrawals to “get clean” and have genuine sobriety.

 Since I started the tapering process and experienced uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms, certain people have indulged in a bit of “I told you so” attitude. They think I should have toughed it out in the beginning, or that I’ve wasted a year of my life on this medication. They say Suboxone is a bunch…

I am going to have to be extra vigilant.  I’m going to have to work harder.  I’m going to have to stick closer to my sponsor and to other people in the program and I’m going to have to work harder at expressing myself honestly.

I’m going to have to  do all these things because I have a prescription for Ritalin in my pocket and later today I’m filling it.

My nurse practitioner works exclusively with addicts and alcoholics and has for over 15 years. Her experience closely mirrors the anecdotal evidence that methamphetamine addicts who are put on Ritalin or Aderal…

Here are some affirmations that came from an Al-Anon workshop. I thought that they were a good way to start this week.

-I deserve happiness and peace in my life.
-I have an excellent mind.
-I can choose to have serenity and peace in my life.
-I am a kind and caring person.
-I deserve great happiness.
-I am worthy of being happy, joyous, and free.
-I see the positive things instead of the negative.
-I will let go of resentments.
-I will accept you just as you are.
-I are a capable, strong, loving person who is a positive influence on others.
-I can be counted on to be there…

Football! I love football. I love it so much, that I’ve begun watching college ball, too. That way, I can watch a game–umm, okay, games–on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! Whoa! I wonder if there’s a 12-step group for football fans? Not for me, of course. I don’t have a problem. I can stop watching any time I want to, but I don’t want to! Besides, I don’t watch as much as some people, and I’m not hurting anyone anyway.

Seriously, I do love football, and I mention it today because that’s what I’m doing right now, watching football. Sundays…