A story is told of the father of a very wealthy family who took his son to visit a distant relative living in the country with the purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent the weekend on the farm of what would be considered, by most standards, a very poor family.…
DetailsSo one might ask what it’s like for a bipolar alcoholic to be involved with rearing children. Well, Breanne, my eldest daughter, only tried to send me to prison once. I often wonder if it was intentional. She was only four. It’s hard to gauge the motives of those little buggers when they are that…
DetailsSo check out an interview I did for Veronica Valli… and check out her fantastic blog. http://veronicavalli.com/2014/09/recovery-rocks-rick-bernhisel/
DetailsAs is often stated in the rooms of recovery, we are granted a daily reprieve [from our addiction] based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. But what does that mean? As I learned in years spent developing software for oil refineries, maintenance can take one of two forms: preventive and “oh-crap- it’s-broken.” Refineries are…
DetailsI’ve only held the prongs on an electrical cord once while plugging it in. The attic room I called home as a child had an in-wall air conditioning unit that had come unplugged. It was dark. I was trying to align the plug with the socket. The resultant shock was sufficiently jarring to alter my…
DetailsThe old man–a hitchhiker I had picked up on I-10–marinated the warm burgundy interior of my Nissan Maxima with a stench that lingered for weeks. I labeled him a hitchhiker although he hadn’t proffered the universal thumbs-up ride seekers are known for. He was just wandering a few hundred yards away from a broken down…
DetailsThe slugfest began with my first 12-step meeting. I was 28. I was 42 when I put the bottle down and called it quits. After first acknowledging a problem, I spent more than a decade in the ring fighting a disease that knocked me down more often than not. A professional boxing match lasts 12…
DetailsThose familiar with Twelve Step recovery know that the First Step begins “Admitted we were powerless over [alcohol], [crack], [meth], [food], [Amazon’s next day delivery option]”. I could expand the list ad infinitum. But what do we really mean by proclaiming ourselves powerless? I’d argue that it doesn’t mean that I am incompetent, feeble or…
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