This past weekend, I had the privilege to attend a daylong class on Buddhism and recovery led by Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. At one point during the day, we broke off into pairs to do an exercise in which we shared around our spiritual journey. I sat down across from my partner, who said, “Hi, I’m Amanda, and I’m an alcoholic.” “Hi, I’m Mary,” I said, “and I’m… codependent.” And I thought, “Oh, that sounds so lame. She really belongs here. She has really struggled. She has real problems and…

Read this book.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis takes 8 ordinary, every day human beings who also happen to be addicts, and portrays the disease of addiction as it blasts its way through a cross section of America.   The subjects are as different as their geographical locations and yet their commonality is all too familiar to those of us who have been there.

For 3 years, Denizet-Lewis followed the lives of 8 different people, all sharing the same disease of addiction, but each one battling with their own specific demons.  In these pages we meet Ellen, a “food addict” who tries to find and cope…

I can get enough of the Responsibility Declaration of AA:

I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. For that, I am responsible.

We discussed it yesterday at a meeting I attended, and it was funny because I’d chanted it to my husband who kept interrupting me and wanting attention while I was on the phone with a sponsee who was struggling. At the meeting, everyone shared on our thoughts of our own 12 step work and the idea of being responsible for passing on the tools we’ve learned through…

About six months ago Bill wrote a post about smoking cessation and said, basically, that if you think you’re in recovery and you’re still smoking cigarettes, you’re not "there" yet.  It pushed my "singleness of purpose" button and I basically came undone.

Well, I’ve had six months to stew on that.  And smoke more.  I tried to do what we 12 steppers claim to do and kept an open mind.  I prayed about it.  I talked to my sponsor.  Ultimately I did a written 1st step exercise about my smoking/nicotine addiction.

And 10 days ago I put the cigarettes down.  I haven’t…

We went to court this morning for my husband’s probation violation. It looks like he’s not going to get any time, which is exciting. It seems that what most likely will happen is that he will get his probation reinstated with a few more bells and whistles than he had before, which in many ways may prove to be a blessing. Since the state will have a vested interest in his paying his restitution and other probationary fees, I am hopeful that his probation officer will help him to get a job. The probation officer he’s been assigned is an…

I recently attended a conference that examined the reasons why we need to establish a Department of Peace. I walked away with many tools to apply towards my recovery; towards my transformation into a well being.

Since I had received a scholarship there I wanted to help serve in some way. While meeting with my team to discuss our schedule for the weekend, I said, “more will be revealed.”  Now, I thought I picked that up from the Magic 8 ball, that round superficial soothsayer. Apparently this is a recovery phrase. One of the conference volunteers pulled me aside the next…

When I first started in Al-Anon, I thought that there was a different language being spoken. There are a lot of phrases that are used such as “One Day at a Time”, “Let go and let God” “How important is it?” and many others. One of the acronyms that I could identify with was F.I.N.E. which means F–kedup, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. How true those adjectives fit me!

I came into the program after a lot of years of frustration, anger, self-pity, denial and low self-esteem. I always thought that I was a bit of a loner, although I like people.…

I spent the weekend at an Al-Anon retreat near my home. My Nar-Anon sponsor came along with me, and my Al-Anon sponsor was there as well. It was great to spend more time with both of them and to make some new friends. There weren’t as many meetings as I would have liked to attend, so I was a little disappointed; however, it was nice to be able to relax. We were in a beautiful valley with nothing to do for long hours of the day, which was good for me. I took a big nap, read, knitted, and hung…

Glenn Greenwald commends Senator Jim Webb for trying to bring attention to our incarceration rates and the need for prison reform. (Though I’m sick of the blogosphere hyperventilating over Obama’s response to the question about pot legalization.) Here’s an excerpt from a speech Webb gave last week:

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to…

this post is inspired by steveroni and his post on friday, which you can read here http://steveroni.blogspot.com/2009/03/fridayride-bus.html. here’s my take…

who am i

were it not for my past

this certainly wouldn’t be me

i’d be a person

with different ideas

of encounters that i didn’t see

by nature i’m

quite inquisitive

i was bound to bump my head

but isn’t part

of learning

rebounding in your step

now i acknowledge

my darker side

the messes i had made

i found my way

through rules unclear

by headstrong illusions betrayed

and on this road

i fought the fight

my very own personal war

eventually listened

accepted direction

in delusions i’m stuck no more

as day follows night

so good follows bad

for everything leads somewhere

building your strengths

your…

Bill White recently visited with some recovery advocates in the UK. There are several reactions posted at Wired in to recovery. Here’s an interesting one on the cultural gap between the US and the UK:

I think I am right in saying that being welfare dependent carries more social stigma in the US than it does here. I think what I am trying to say is that there is a different social context for self-help and mutual aid and therefore recovery.

In the UK’s welfare state, there is a large body of middle class professionals (including drugs workers) who are charged with managing…

When I first walked into an Al-Anon meeting, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was at a very low point emotionally and knew that I needed to get some help. They say in AA that you have to hit bottom before you recognize the problem and get with the program, or else you die. I guess you can say that I had pretty much hit bottom emotionally. I felt empty and tired of everything. I had pushed myself to work, do chores, and keep life moving along by sheer determination. My “qualifier” and SO wasn’t getting any better in…

You are invited to join our weekly Sunday chats that each week feature a new host from the recovery community.  Margaux will be our host this Sunday, March 29th, at 8pm EST.

I read Margaux often, for inspiration, for reflection on how to stay strong and transform pain into self-discovery. Her words are candid and insightful, punctuated with both humor and grimace.  She brilliantly communicates all the emotions and revelations that come up as her and her husband unravel the knot of his sex addiction.

She discovered her husband’s addiction three weeks before their wedding. As she writes, “Ending up in a…

Those of you who read me regularly know that I’m from an observant Jewish background, which means that I follow plenty of rules. And I scoff plenty of rules. I’m as good a hypocrite as anyone else, as are all my friends and most people who breathe.

But we try to be better.

And probably like most religions that have teeth to them, there’s plenty of spirituality to back up mine, to make the rigor make sense.

Because a Jew’s life is one for the books, meaning theoretically, ideally, every movement could be a page from a Jewish law book, should be a…

Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

This is my favorite step. I like it because it incorporates all that I’ve put into action through the previous nine steps. But most of all, it means that it’s okay for me to recognize and admit my mistakes promptly and then move on.

Step 10 means that I take my own inventory and not someone else’s. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to take the alcoholic’s inventory. But that isn’t what this is about. And this step isn’t about my being right. It’s about my having…

Early in recovery, I struggled with the notion that the geographic cure — trying to fix my life with a move to a new home, a new job or a new relationship — is a fallacy. I know that I bring my problems with me wherever I go, lugging them around like so much unseen baggage, and yet… There’s a reason why I’ve been tempted run away from my marriage at times — to shave my head and join a cult or live in a shack in Montana or just head to the beach and elope with a cabana boy…

Have you ever noticed how the small things make people happy? I think that sometimes it’s just a smile or an expression that you care that can make a person’s day.

Yesterday I took some time to go with a good friend to visit his aunt. She is 80 years old. She lives alone now, after the death of her husband three years ago. She seemed to be thrilled to have a visit from us. We drove her around the town for about 30 minutes because she doesn’t drive anymore. She wanted to show her nephew some of the places from…

When I first started going to S-Anon (a 12 Step recovery group for those affected by someone else’s compulsive sexual behavior), I was immediately struck by how small the group was. If we had seven or eight people in the room, it was a big meeting, and ten people was huge. Most nights there were just four or five women (always women) huddle together in folding chairs in a church meeting room. But a few doors down, ten times that many people would be at the Sexaholics Anonymous meeting on the same night.

As I struggled to find this one meeting…

Sincere spiritual investigation is, and always has been, an endeavor of methodical discipline. Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all.

–Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love, the cult-status ,slightly chick-lit memoir that chronicles Elizabeth Gilbert’s year-long spiritual journey across Italy, India and Indonesia. Whenever I would mention to someone that I was reading this book—especially to my pals in the recovery community, I’d get snarky remarks about the privileged author. “Of course it was easy for her to reach new levels of…

April is Alcohol Awareness month. The Second Road will showcase a recovery story everyday during the month of April. Please help TSR applaud those living in recovery while helping to bring awareness to addiction and to also make people aware of the strong community of support that exists.

TSR wants to salute the people who are battling alcoholism; as a child, a parent, a spouse, sibling, or as an addict. Be it 22 years or 2 days, they want to hear from the people making the decision to start a new path—to take the second road. TSR hopes this showcase will…

He had a dream that I told him I was leaving him, because I ‘was done.’

I laughed. We have a good relationship, we’re good friends, we respect and love each other. and I said, “that’s weird, why do you think you had that dream?”

“Pff, I don’t know” he said.

Really? I thought, Cause, I’m pretty sure I just said that to you the other day…? I let it go and watched him go about his morning.

At his point, it most sincerely is an endearing quality to watch him hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Last night, I asked him again why…

Research catches up to conventional wisdom: Sleep Drug, Sometimes Used as Study Aid, Might Be Addictive

“You are so fucking stupid,” I said. It flew out of my mouth. I didn’t mean it. I meant it completely.

I’d given my husband some money for methadone. His mother had given it to me to help with bills, and I felt a little funny accepting the money from her. Instead, I offered it to him to help him pay for his medication. I got home from work, and he was tooling around with some stuff in the front yard, and he showed me a few things he’d purchased. It wasn’t much money, but it made me furious. I’d given…

Buddhism has been, and will continue to be, an integral part of my recovery program. I have been practicing for some years with greater or lesser effect and, interestingly (to me, at least), over that time I moved from being a “seeker” to an agnostic. However, Buddhist philosophy is not really religious in nature, and I have had no problem adjusting my personal beliefs to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, along with the Precepts that we take when we formally profess to follow that path.

In our Second Road chat this past Sunday, I jokingly mentioned to Humble…

I cried a lot yesterday. I cried at my minds sight of my husband, who I was letting slip between my fingers - letting go slowly.

It amazes me to know end that this could happen now; yet, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

In the last few weeks I have come to cross a line in myself that feels impossible to cross back on. I can’t go backwards. I have become witness to my own truth: that no matter how much and deeply I love this man (and I do…) my heart has been gone for a long time. I’m…

by William Cope Meyers

In the throes of a crisis, a family would do anything to halt the destruction caused by a loved one’s inability to stop drinking or taking drugs. But what about calling the police?

Dear Mr. Moyers: Our daughter is a college graduate with a good head on her shoulders and a loving, caring heart. About seven months ago, Jean was treated for a heroin problem for the first time. The day she got out of treatment, she went back to her dealer, an old boyfriend, and was high again in an hour. She lost everything, even custody of…

I am getting better at saying no, when I mean no, but it’s still an area where I have a lot of work to do. Saying “yes” to requests is like a reflex to me. Tap my knee and my foot bounces up, ask me for help and I say, “Yes.” Oops. Wait. Let me think about that. The “yes” is so deeply ingrained that I don’t always see it.

I learned early on that “no” was not an acceptable answer, at least not if people pleasing me wanted to continue to please people. The folks in my life would give…

Here’s the sad truth… I don’t know. I have yet to meet anyone that does. I have met lots of people with different opinions but no one that absolutely knows.

There seem to be many sides to this coin. What are your opinions? I want to know.

This is some of what I’ve been told…not that I agree with it all.

If your in the rooms, you CAN’T tell anyone that anybody that you’ve seen in the rooms is in the rooms.

But if they leave the rooms you SHOULD tell everyone.

If you tell something to someone in your sponsorship family a secret it…

I saw some of my closest college friends yesterday, and it was interesting. I still keep in close touch with one of the women, and our relationship has grown over the years that I’ve been dealing with my husband’s addiction and my own reactions to it. The other friend, with whom I was once extremely close, and I have lost touch over the years, and it was interesting seeing her now that I feel so differently about the way I interact with the world.

She was my party friend in college. We drank and drugged together, and we had some really…

Every so often around the 12-step rooms you’ll hear someone say, “My name’s X, and I’m a grateful recovered (alcoholic, addict, codependent, etc.)” I think you probably hear it more around the rooms of AA because there’s a reference to being recovered, as opposed to recovering, in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A few months ago I decided to try it on for size. I began referring to myself that way — as a recovered person, a recovered alcoholic/addict, and so forth. I stopped after a bit, though, because it made me uncomfortable and I thought it made me seem…