Last night my husband Mark and I stayed up past midnight finalizing the details of our Christmas budget and to do list. We divided up the errands and agreed on which of us would buy for whom and how much money we would each use to do it. I (in an uncharacteristically organized fashion) made a detailed list of everything I’d volunteered to take care of as well as a few other things that occurred to me. I set it next to my computer along with a calendar showing my deadline for each item, so that I’d be ready 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…

We are quickly approaching the holidays, which can be an intense time for a person in recovery.  From Thanksgiving to New Years, the holidays are loaded with triggers.  Living sober day to day presents ample challenges as is, but the holidays also re-introduce memories, family situations, extra demands and difficult situations.

Instead of the season becoming a reason to relapse, try to relate the significance of each holiday to your recovery while taking the necessary precautions to retain your sobriety.

Think about some of the steps listed below, utilize the ones you need as tools, and please, share your own suggestions with…

Maybe the whole holiday ordeal was harder on me than I thought.  It looks like I’ve been on autopilot for awhile and it has kind of kicked my ass.  Now I’m doing the whole Oprah “I’m mad at myself” Winfrey thing, and while I’m writing this partially as a form of quick confession, I’m also writing it because it illustrates something that, when I read the story in the Big Book, seems kind of lame to me.

It’s the story of the guy who works at the company he used to own.  His pride is hurt.  He’s resentful.  He hits the…

I’m really looking forward to the holidays being over with.  I had no idea how I’ve come to depend on the ordinariness and predictability of my little world to help me keep my bearings straight.  And to think how much I used to love the chaos. Either I’m growing or - I’m getting old.  Maybe some of both.

I’m just really anxious for these last few days of messed up work schedules and messed up meeting schedules and no school to be over with and done.  So I can go back to my beautiful little rut.  And get back on track. …

Part of the tradition of 12 step recovery is that we are “quick to recognize where religious people are right,” and part of my tradition on Christmas Eve is to attend evening services at St. Michael’s Cathedral, the Episcopal cathedral that is located just a few blocks from where I live.  The church I was raised in couldn’t be more different than traditional Christian churches, so I feel a little out of place there, especially at a high mass like the one they do at Christmas.  But the music program is so incredible and the building is so beautiful -…

I understand this is a difficult time of year for most people, and for many of us economic pressures are adding to the holiday burden.

For me, the winter of my discontent begins on the 13th of December, my birthday, the day I was arrested the last time, the day I was sentenced to prison, the day I became homeless.  The day I had the meltdown that got me sober.

Then comes Christmas with all it’s demands for happiness for joy and peace and cards and gifts and wrapping paper.  Every wrapped gift I see, every house with electronically choreographed lights and…

Holidays are a time of stress for so many in recovery. Whether it’s relatives’ alcoholic behavior or just plain screwed-up dysfunction, our families have special access to our triggers. Who but family can elicit the reemergence of every character defect, personality flaw, and long lost resentment that we thought we’d conquered? There may be others able to negatively revert us, but families do so with uncanny efficiency, don’t they?

Families tend to pigeon-hole us into the characters we once were, rather than honoring us for the people we’ve become. It’s amazing really. My brothers and father still treat me as the…