Whenever my grandpa got into a tizzy about something, my grandma used to say, “Patience is a virtue.  Possess it if you can.  It’s seldom in a woman, and never in a man.”  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Well, patience was the topic at the meeting I attended this evening.  There was a relative newcomer in the group and he was saying how he had just come off his pink cloud and wanted to get these steps over NOW.  He was just working on his 3rd step and was told to read the 3rd step chapter in the 12 and 12 every…

A lot of people don’t like changes.  They keep their living room furniture in the same pattern for years, never even thinking of moving a table, or, God forbid, a couch, to give the room a different feng shui.  Many people would never try foods that they can’t pronounce, nor would they ever think of vacation in a land that does not know what a McFlurry is.  I was raised in such a household, as were many of my peers in the 50’s and 60’s.  Our living room never changed, neither did our menu or our vacation destinations.  I was…

Twelve years ago I was rushing into a grocery store, trying to get a few things on my way to my next errand.  I, as usual, was moving at the speed of light, thinking about what I had to do next….when I saw her.  There she was, a big, black, furry dog with small deep set brown eyes and a face that reminded me of a black bear.  It only took one look, for both of us.  I knew.  She knew.  She was mine.  I was hers.  I brought her home to my little town house which already was home…

Well, once again it is snowing like @&$%# where I live and I am homebound.  It also looks like no one will be moving out of their abodes for several days, due to the “inclement weather” we are experiencing in the Mid-Atlantic.  Being hold up in my home with six dog and two cats makes for some interesting circumstances and it is a constant effort to keep the back deck shoveled so the dogs have somewhere they can walk and not get totally lost in the snow.  That cats, on the other hand, could care less - after all, they…

Yesterday it snowed all day.  It was as if there was a giant flour sifter in the heavens that just endlessly dusted layer upon layer of light, pure, dainty snow powder all over the land.  I stayed in the house, the grey sky telling me to be still, enjoy the quiet and just listen.  I did as I was told.  I spent most of the day in my bed, reading and just being quiet - letting the stillness speak.  This is what it said:

Our time in this place is temporary.  We do not know when we will leave, nor do…

I went to see “Avatar” last night.  I originally hadn’t planned on going, but heard amazing things about how beautiful the movie was and that the message was profound.  I know absolutely nothing  about all the technical voo-doo that went into making this  $300,000 million dollar movie, but I do know that it has left an imprint in my heart.

The movie takes place in the 21st century and tells the story of a mission by U.S. Armed Forces to mine an indispensable mineral that is plentiful on a moon called Pandora, somewhere out in the universe.  The inhabitants of Pandora,…

Reviewed by Ginger B.

“A Piece of Cake” is a memoir written by San Francisco attorney, Cupcake Brown, in which she painstakingly chronicles her life beginning at age 11, when her mother suddenly dies, through the hell of the next 15 or so years,  and eventually to the awakening she finds in recovery.

The reader is immediately plunged into the violent, malicious, sexual world in which Cupcake will live, with a description of Cupcake’s first foster home - a place where she is repeatedly raped, physically assaulted and verbally and emotionally abused by Diane, and her daughter and nephew.  She runs away…

of being sick and tired.  This time I mean it literally.  I am, once again, velcroed to my bed, and have been for the last several days.  Flu?  Funk?  Stuff?  It boils down to headache, sore throat, nausea and absolutely debilitating weakness.  This pattern has been a natural part of my life for the past several years, especially prominent in the winter months.  I feel absolutely perfect…go to work, the gym, my other classes and everything is fine and then SLAM!!!!! The symptoms appear and I’m in bed….sometimes for 18 hours, sometimes for a day or two.  This time it’s…

written by b.e.

I felt moved and compelled to respond to the Road Warrior’s wonderful and very true Jan. 19, 2010 blog “Lighten UP!” Soon, I ran out of room in the comment section (I’m a wanna be blogger). Tonight, I’m tired like many other people with many reasons. It’s been a long day of urgently working on Health Care reform, keeping up to date on my personal connections in Haiti, and helping with funding for immediate rebuilding following this critical time of disaster relief. During difficult times, I and others often dismiss personal struggles with remarks like, “Quit whining. Look…

I used to think that being an addict/alcoholic was kind of unique.  After all, we don’t make up the majority of the population, at least I don’t think we do.  And we have a disease,  so we have our own little  suggested practices to deal with our method of keeping that disease in check and continue healing.  And that is still true as I write these words.  But the older I get, the longer I live among the other earthlings on this planet and the more I interact with individual members of the species, the closer I come to realizing…

Yesterday it was cold and rainy where I live.  I woke up at about 7:00 and immediately my dogs went into hyper mode…..there is no such thing as gently greeting the dawn in my house.  So I popped out of bed, let everyone outside, administered various contents of the 47 bottles of medicine that my canines ingest on a semi-daily basis, fed them all (which is no small feat I must admit - trying to put 6 dog bowls down in some kind of order so everyone won’t attack dog bowl #1 at the same time).  During this time I…

I just got back from a meeting where I picked up a 3 year medallion.  Three years can go by in an instant.  Three years can also move like molasses dripping from a Maple Tree in the dead of winter.  I’ve experience both these extreme during the past 1095 days (who’s counting?).   Some of the time I was on top of the world…secure, steadfast, confidant.  Some of the time I was under the covers (literally), a place that I have often substituted for the numbness that the ingestion of chemicals used to give me.  Some of the time I’ve been…

It was so much easier in the old days when I could pop a handful of pills and/or guzzle a bottle of Vodka and numb my way into that zone of least resistance.  Although the re-entry process back into life was always accompanied  with shame, guilt and often a major reversal of my peristaltic system of digestion, I conveniently forgot all that discomfort the next day when I went through the act of destroying my brain cells and bodily organs, and wreaking havoc on every other part of my life.

Now I have to face the disappointments, the sadness, the joys, …

Whenever I ask my HP to help me understand something, in this case humility, I am usually overwhelmed with opportunities to practice that for which I have just asked.  I wish the request would just drop down from above and wrap me in a beautiful (but simple….because I am humble) blanket of a soft, downy demeanor that would be admired by all as “being humble.”  But alas, my HP does not work that way.  Whenever I request a trait that I would like to have, I am always rewarded with many, many situations in which I have the opportunity to…

I went to a meeting last night where the cold, wet rain pouring outside of the building had seeped through the brick and dry wall and permeated the entire space of the room.  It was a Big Book study and the format is the continued reading of the BB and whenever anyone feels so moved, they share.  I came in a couple minutes late, surprised to see that so many people had come out on this bone-chilling night, but felt the onerous weight of the upcoming holidays hanging over the space like an invisible pall.  There were many moments of…

I’ve been on a little spiritual sabbatical of late.  Actually, my spirituality is  not so much on sabbatical as are the methods that I use to express it.  I was born and raised Roman Catholic - I think I already told you that I went to Catholic grade school, high school, college and grad school.  I left “The Church” in my early twenties, only to return in my early thirties when my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  I made the standard bargain with God - “Save my mom and I’ll come back.”  I came back.  My mom died.  But…

It’s another morning after - but this time it’s just a food hangover.  I went to a 12 step marathon yesterday and ate my weight on carbohydrates and tryptophan.  Now I’m moving just a little slow.  My whole attitude towards Thanksgiving and the holidays is general has changed over the years and continues to do so.  Of course, when I was a child, Thanksgiving was the day that we had to get dressed up and sit at the kids’ table.  The food was good, but I remember it as mostly an “adult” event.  Christmas, however, was magical.  My father would…

I regularly receive  gratitude lists from my friends in the program.  I, however, rarely write one myself.  Today I am going to make an exception.

I am grateful for being clean and sober (we hear that all the time, but it is the truth)

I am grateful for a kind, loving, tender-hearted son who is the joy of my life.

I am grateful for my family members (the ones who are talking to me), and all my friends for their continued support of letting me be who I am.

I am grateful for this wonderful job that lets me live, work and practice my…

by William C. Moyers

It took 13 years, but I finally appeared on a stage in front of an audience on Broadway.

The Capri Theater on Broadway Avenue in a gritty stretch of North Minneapolis was filled with politicians and civic leaders, ministers and a couple of donors with deep pockets. My real affinity was for everyone else in the crowd — the crack addicts and alcoholics, who share my illness.

“When I ain’t clean, I’m on the streets, and been on the streets more them last four years than I want to be, except when I been locked up in the joint,”…

“Compassion is not a virtue - it is a commitment.”  So writes Brene Brown in her book ,”I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)”, a book about women and shame issues that I am currently reading and will review in the near future.  As I read this line I had to stop and put the book down.  The words were immediately absorbed into my flesh, my organs, my mind, heart, spirit and soul.  How often have I considered being compassionate as some kind of lofty virtue that I “bestow” on others?  How many times has my compassion just…

I just read a blog written by The Junky’s Wife that ended with a comment about all we have to do is wait,  and pray about whatever it is we’re trying to work through - and that’s it.  Ya know how sometimes you  can read a sentence and it hits you like a ton of bricks?  Well,  that little group of words just knocked me for a loop.

For the past several months I, like everyone else on the planet, have been going through some rather difficult life decision-making processes.  It doesn’t matter what they are.  You have yours and I…

I’m at the tail end of the flu, the funk, a cold, a virus - whatever you want to call it.  It laid me  flat for a few days.  I’m talkin’ in the bed, sweating, freezing, can’t shower or even brush my teeth kinda sick.  I’m talkin’ wanting to burn the sheets kinda sick - even the dogs wouldn’t come near me kinda sick.  I am now literally sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Everyone has it, but when I got it, it was happening to ME!  It’s all about me, remember?  I’m an addict - it HAS…

by William C. Moyers

In my 12-step meeting a few days ago, a woman stood up and announced that she was new to the group and that she had 36 hours of sobriety. She was greeted with a rousing round of cheers and applause. Sober people tend to do that; it’s as much for themselves as it is for the newcomer. “Hooray for her, and thank goodness it’s not me” is the expressed but unspoken sentiment among fellow travelers.

I clapped, too. Then my skin tingled as the hairs stood upright on my neck and arms. I shuddered. Once, I was counting hours,…

Last Sunday I went to Washington D.C. and participated in the March for Equality for lesbians, gays, trans-gender and bi-sexual people.  I went for several reasons.  A friend had bought me a ticket on a bus that was going from his church, so there were a group of people that I could identify with.  I have a gay family member and she and her partner have experienced the stigma of same-sex relationships on many levels.  I also marched because I believe we are all in this together….we are all members of the same family of humanity.  I don’t know why…

For years now I have used the understated elegance of many Buddhist practices to work toward living life in the present moment, and to being an integral part of this earth, while allowing myself not to be attached to it.  There is no success or failure rate in the Buddhist path.  There is only the awareness of the ebb and flow of living, the constancy of change and the acceptance of things as they are.

That is why I am totally smitten by Joni Kay Rose’s book,  “The Joy Beyond Craving - A Buddhist Perspective on Addiction and Recovery.” In this…

I recently went to an art show where the inmates at our local jail were able to exhibit some of their artwork.  When I was incarcerated at this same institution, there were no such programs available.  Most of the prisoners at this jail are there for crimes committed in active addiction. Just take a look and see what hidden talents these “addicts” have and what they are able to accomplish when given a chance.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

by William C. Moyers

It’s a question I’m asked no matter where I speak, from churches and Rotary Club events to public-school assemblies and private luncheons with business leaders: Should parents share their personal histories of drug and alcohol use with their kids?

A groundbreaking study released this week by Hazelden, where I work, should answer this question once and for all. It is no longer acceptable for parents simply to urge their children to “just say no.”

Among the results of Hazelden’s “Four Generations Overcoming Addiction” survey:

—Half of teens say it would make them less likely to use drugs if their parents told…

I just got back from one of my favorite 12 step meetings.  One of the reasons I love this group is because they’re totally down to earth, talk the talk AND walk the walk and there’s always meat on this bones in the basement of this church.  It’s a mix of street folks, non-working upper middle class women, and others who just have a quick hour and use it to fill their soul holes rather than their stomachs.

Today’s topic was early sobriety.  Several folks were recalling what is was like for them so many years ago…the constancy of the pain,…

I just subscribed to a new daily affirmation site that sends personalized messages to me, every day from “The Universe.”  “Hokey,” you say.  Perhaps.  But I’m pretty open to anything that can make me feel better without the use of chemical in any form these days, so what the hell! I just subscribed yesterday, after my blog “Monday, Monday…Can’t Trust That Day” and here’s what popped up this morning on my e-mail.

Tell you what, Ginger: If you can get happy right now, in spite of any problems, challenges, and circumstances that now seem to taunt you, I’ll take care of…

by William C. Moyers

Many alcoholics and addicts suffer long-term physical consequences as a result of their use, even after they get sober. This includes chronic pain that may require the use of doctor-prescribed narcotics. So how does this affect somebody’s recovery?

Dear Mr. Moyers: I used heroin for 20 years and crack for eight. In a few weeks, my family will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my being clean. My big question is: Am I really clean? I did a lot of damage and still live with pain that only painkillers mask. I am careful not to take these meds on…