Easy Seduces, Effort Heals: The Hard Truth of Dual-Diagnosis Recovery
ake comes to on the cold floor next to his vomit-stained pillow. The mattress he rolled off reeks of urine. Yesterday he was afraid he was going manic… again. The logic that got him here limps back into view: “Just a couple shots to calm the mania and let me sleep. My provider’s always talking […]
Addiction as a Hunger for Home
An Essay on Addiction, Consciousness, and Contemplative Practice The “God” Word The “God” word hit me like a punch to the ribs the first time I sat in a 12-step meeting.I could handle the lingering aroma of burnt coffee, the cheesy slogans, even the bad folding chairs. But God? Mix that with a chart that […]
Wounded, But Not Done: Why the Victim Card Makes for a Losing Hand
“The victim card makes for a losing hand,” – Michele Flynn The more I sit with alcoholics and addicts of all stripes, the clearer it becomes, we all carry wounds. But somewhere along the line, we started confusing wounds with identity. “Wound-identified” became a badge of honor. We drag our scars around like trophies, demanding […]
Recovery Rules: Walk the Bike, Find Your Freedom
Rules don’t shrink you — they widen the road. Just a kid on her bike. Just a dad jogging next to her, trying to act like he wasn’t dying. “I want to get better at shooting a basketball,” she said. “We play every day in P.E.” She was seven. It was a lazy Saturday in […]
Hey Dr. Phil! We are not “Idiots.”
Mentally ill? For most of recorded history the treatment was barbaric. Labeled as witches, we were burned at the stake or weighted down and thrown into icy water. If we floated we were “guilty.” Fished out and sent to said burning stake. Sink to the bottom? Well then we were “innocent”… and dead. England saw […]
god, meds and recovery
So 12-step recovery suggests I find a God (or god) of my own understanding. That’s a hard enough task for your average alcoholic or addict. But when bipolar mania, coupled with psychosis, once had you convinced that you were God… of rather that more obscure member of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, that is some […]
And it begins like this…
I’m taking a whiz in an inappropriate place again. Apparently five plus years of sobriety have done little to suppress “the world is my toilet” viewpoint that I subscribe to. Tonight it’s the side of a forest-green Waste Management Dumpster behind a Fry’s supermarket. The street sweeping company I drive for has sent me to […]
Hey 13th Steppers! Give it a Rest.
Celia never seemed to put more than a few months together clean. A complete failure at recovery. Not worth the 24-hour, 30-day and occasional 60-day aluminum chips she was picking up with regularity. At least that’s what some thought. The short, short cutoff jeans. The barely-there blouses. For the healthy ones in the rooms, clothes […]
Justifiable Anger???
Yes, I know better. But sometimes I make the mistake of watching the news. Though I swore off drinking 11+ years ago, each time I take a broadcast I get served a toxic cocktail—one-part Anger, one-part Hatred, two-parts Outrage and a splash of Victimhood. In no time, I am on an emotional bender. Anger and […]
Failures into Lessons
My last bipolar manic episode was what my 94-year-old mother would call a “doozey.” (Sure, my Facebook analytics tell me my followers skew Millennial. Perhaps I should express myself in emojis and f-bombs. But I am guessing there isn’t a little icon or string of profanity that could properly describe an episode that still has […]
