Who’s Your Higher Power

WHO’S YOUR HIGHER POWER? In the recovering alcoholic and addict communities across the nation and throughout the world, that question is asked almost every day. Many if not most men and women who begin the journey from drinking and drugging to living clean and sober struggle with just finding some concept of God, as they are strongly urged to do. Developing an active relationship with a God who will play a constant and critical role in their life in recovery is even more foreign. Continue reading

Jerusalem AA/NA

The Wailing Wall

The Wailing Wall

After traveling for about 2 weeks and attending only 2 meetings, my husband and I were both ready for another boost to our emotional health. In Jerusalem, the online meeting list included one or two English speaking AA meetings every day and only a few English speaking NA meetings each week.

Wanting to attend a meeting to get spiritually fit and centered, we planned our evening around the 6 PM AA.  At 25 and 29 years of recovery, it is not likely that either of us will drink or use, but that is not all of what recovery offers us. There have been very few weeks in a total of more than half a century of recovery when each of us has not attended one or more meetings. (More on travel to Indonesia and other meeting-less places later. Hint: take a book and have your own.) Continue reading

I am 29 Today

Ongoing Recovery, One More Day

 Today I am 29. Twenty-nine years without a drink or a drug. Since every day alive is a miracle and a gift, I count many thousands of miracles and gifts. They have not all been “good” days, but each has been tolerable. Even if I have “found it necessary to use,” I have not used. One day at a time, for 29 years. Continue reading

Why? or Why Not?

The illusion is that if we just know why, we can effect change. Not so. “Why” is the refrain of the two year old and of the teenager. Never ending and always prompting another question, not a solution, “why” becomes a mental gyration. “Why” is the booby prize! We can speculate, understand the psychodynamics, believe we know the pathway we have followed to our present state of being, perhaps our present state of self destruction, and still continue down said pathway! Continue reading

Xanax or Spiritual Recovery? You Chose

This article, like most of mine, is directed specifically at those wanting recovery from drug addiction, including alcoholism (addiction to alcohol). I am honored that you, the general public also read and comment on my articles and pray you continue to get something useful with each one, even if it provokes discomfort.

Xanax, like alcohol, heroin, cocaine, oxycontin and countless others is a mind altering drug. Those in honest and serious recovery from alcoholism call it, “eating your alcohol,” or “alcohol in pill form”, as the two drugs, alcohol and Xanax, have similar effects on brain chemistry. If you are claiming to be alcohol free, clearly if you say you are drug free, get honest with yourself. If you are popping pills when you experience an uncomfortable feeling such as fear, anxiety, anger, frustration etc. why not just have a drink? Yup, it’s the same thing. Continue reading