Waking up can be a painful process. When we are deep in sleep, we may feel warm and secure. We don’t have to think or move, and we feel suspended in space and time for a while. When we wake up, we know we have to change our situation, sometimes facing things that we would [...]

It can creep up on you slowly because sometimes, knowledge is a process rather than an event. When we are in school and learning a program or skills, one moment we didn’t have it and the next, we’ve read or tried it and suddenly it’s become part of our knowledge base. But not all things [...]

This morning, my boyfriend asked me if I would be driving out to his place tonight. I paused, not quite knowing how to respond. I had just stepped off a plane, arriving home from a business trip which had been short, but exhausting. My house was a mess, and I had a list a mile [...]

My support group has an expression: “Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated.” As I get further into my own recovery, I recall with some shame the degree to which I held on, in the past, to relationships where I clearly was not celebrated and in fact, felt barely tolerated. This included my relationship [...]

A man I was dating a while back was constantly telling me I no longer needed my support program.  After we broke up, I realized that there had been many signs that he was probably an (undiagnosed?) alcoholic.  When the rough years of my marriage began, my ex-husband tried to dissuade me from taking classes [...]

Several months ago I bought two tickets to a rock concert as a treat for myself.  The tickets arrived, I put them in my “important stuff” drawer and promptly forgot about them.  The other day I realized that the concert had already happened, and that I had spent $170 on two empty seats. As a single mom [...]

I learned about the healing power of compassion during a period in my life when I was hopelessly unhappy in my job.  For various reasons, changing jobs was not an option so I stayed put, but I decided to add another element to my life that could give me satisfaction.  Around that time I happened [...]

The road to recover is actually very similar for alcoholics and alcoholic supporters alike.   Both journeys are tough, and they each begin by admitting we have a problem, and that we are incapable of solving it on our own.  The next logical step is to determine who or what can help us.  If we could [...]

In your own recovery, it is vitally important that you work on redeveloping trust in yourself.  That trust is synonymous with self-respect, self-confidence, and your sense of self generally.  It is the foundation on which your spiritual being can begin to heal, and your mind and body will follow.   Until you trust yourself, it will [...]

By high school, most of us have developed the essence of our personality.  How would people describe you back then?  How would they describe you now?  How far have you moved from who you were?  My personality completely changed after so many years with my alcoholic, but I never realized just how much until my sister [...]