…we got all night

to set the world right…
…find us a dream that don’t ask no…

I was at a particularly “bloody” meeting yesterday, one of those where everyone who shared had some semi-horror story to discuss about their recovery. I go to a lot of meetings attended by folks from the many treatment facilities hereabouts, so that sort of thing is hardly a surprise. This one, however, was especially notable — lots of unhappy folks having their problems walking the path, just like I did in the early days.

I went straight from there to a weekend retreat that was mostly meditation, and found myself considering the question of just what constitutes an “old-timer”. It’s not…

I’m an alcoholic, drug addict and codependent.  My name is Bill.

I had my 45th birthday in a treatment center. I was employed in a good job, making a good salary, working for a man I liked and respected, and doing a job I didn’t especially like, but at which I excelled. Nevertheless, not two weeks before my birthday I’d been sitting on one of the twin beds in a motel room, my home having been foreclosed on. Food was hot dogs from the convenience store across the street. Salvation, such as it was, was beer from the same source. The…

Sometimes we bloggers find that our text doesn’t play nice with the blogging system we use.  Copying and pasting from our editors into the blog pages can result in some unfortunate conflicts, format-wise.  I’ve noticed the problem here at 2ndRd as well as other sites on the Net, so I thought I’d offer this.  It might not seem exactly related to recovery, but if you’re writing about recovery much, it could help avoid resentments.

There are a couple of simple ways around this formatting problem.  The most obvious is to use the Rich Text editors on the blog page or on…

About 18 or so years ago, the author Lawrence Block wrote a novel called Random Walk, about a young man who begins a journey eastward from Oregon on foot, on what he imagines is a whim.  Along the way he picks up followers, including a murderous character whose coming to terms with his past makes up a powerful subplot.

The book is clearly a parable for the recovery process, as well as a New Age venture into mysticism.  Like all Block’s novels, it is tight and well-crafted.  Unfortunately it fell flat on its face and is now out of print.  Nonetheless,…

I just learned of a resentment toward me being held by a close family member. Since we won’t be able to discuss it face to face for a few weeks, neither of us wanted to get into it at all right now. Such things are ill-resolved by email. They require the nuances of tone of voice and the visual cues that make up 80% of human interaction. We will discuss it.

It’s interesting, however, that now I’m aware of it I feel as though there’s some sort of sword hanging over my head. Change is afoot, and I may have to do…

The serenity prayer is, without doubt, one of the most useful — tools, ideas, comforts, guides, whatever you want to call it — that I’ve gotten from my recovery. Like most profound truths, it could hardly be more simple, and yet there is a lifetime of guidance in those few lines.

However, it isn’t guidance that I was able to accept while I was still active in my addictions. Addicts, alcholics and codependents don’t really have the capacity to deal with inaction (which is what, in most cases, the Serenity Prayer mandates). We want to be doing something, making things go…