Nothing clarifies my thinking, brings peace of mind or put me in a position to effect positive change like acceptance–acceptance of everything as it is right now; no vain attempts to rewrite the past or worrying about a future that may not materialize. But there is a catch. While acceptance implies that I am fully…
DetailsGo to enough Twelve Step meetings and you’ll encounter them. They know the literature inside and out, quote it frequently and give the page number they are quoting from to underscore their authority. They are the Big Book Thumpers. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. For the fourteen years I was…
DetailsWhen I was a child, I intuitively knew when something was too big for me to handle. If I wanted to go to the beach-some thirty miles from my home-I didn’t try to walk there, I didn’t try to drive there, I asked my mom or dad for a ride. Why, in working on my…
DetailsPeople who make their living-either in dollars or in purpose-selling their brand of organized religion may take exception to this post, and, for that matter, this whole blog. For spirituality is not about passing the collection plate or winning converts. Spirituality, to me, isn’t about the number of times I attend church or twelve step…
DetailsMy wife turned to me the other day and asked that I write a blog post on grace. That threw me for a a loop. I typically associate “grace” with evangelical Christians. Though spiritual, my wife is not overly religious. What’s more, she’s more of action-oriented, “works” kind of a person. As she works with…
DetailsAt a meeting last night I ran into an old acquaintance who is trying to sober up for the umpteenth time. He reminds me a lot of me. I went to my first Twelve Step meeting when I was twenty-eight. I finally sobered up when I was forty-two. I can’t even begin to count the…
DetailsDoes your wife approve of your last blog post? That question has come up more than once. In writing about the situation wife my wife’s deteriorating health at the beginning of my last bout of mania I touched on the sensitive subject of her own bout of the crazies while on mass doses of the…
DetailsMy wife was dying. It was November l5th–our first wedding anniversary. It was at the ICU at Mercy Gilbert Hospital. Earlier that day she had tried to have me barred from the room. During the past six months her COPD (emphysema) had worsened. That past June she had been forced to give up the career…
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