A more exact location . . .

My new blog location is slowly coming together and my blog has a definite home.
For anyone who's interested it can now be found at

http://thesecondroad.org/mind_body_spirit/.

(Sorry, I couldn't get this to work as a link in the body of the text.)


I really hope anyone who's interested in sobriety will check out The Second Road site, itself. It's URL is

http://www.thesecondroad.org/.

(Sorry, again, I couldn't get this to work as a link.)
.

And happy Thanksgiving! Not that we're not thankful every day just to be alive and living without practicing our addictions!

I'm moving

My blog is moving to http://www.thesecondroad.org. It's a free, online community for people in all kinds of recovery, powered by two women I really respect and admire. It's still in start-up mode, but I think it's going to be a terrific gathering place for those of us who make sense of our lives with the help of the recovery community.

My blog is in the mind/body/spirit section. I'm going to focus on Higher Power issues and thoughts, but will still be shooting my mouth of about life in general along the road of recovery.

Thoughts on choosing joy . . .

I had a long phone chat the other night with a young friend who appears to have been unhappy her entire life. Of course, she’s depressed—a state with which I have huge empathy and sympathy, for I’ve been there and done that with the best of them. But what I remember of my own depressed state is that it maddened me. I don’t think I ever, ever got comfortable with it; ever stopped flailing away at it, trying to beat back its control over my psyche and my relationships and my life.

My young friend—who’s not in recovery, by the way, and doesn’t appear to need to be—seems to me, to have decided that she is her unhappiness. She seems to be comfortable defining herself as “the woman whose life never works out.”

I do gently try to point this out. I do like her, in spite of her romance with the negative. I’m always aware when I’m talking with her that there, but for my fortunate collapse into substance abuse, go I.

Well into recovery, my life is as confused and annoying and disappointing as the next person’s; but, good golly, I do so enjoy it. At some point, I think, depressed or not, we have to make a deliberate choice not to turn our backs on joy.

Thoughts on the beauty of weeds

Charlie took this shot today in our front field and sent it to me at work. I love the small details of season change here in the Valley. I love the fact that being sober allows me to take pleasure in such simple things.

Sorry to have been remiss in the posting department. What got in the way is called life, I guess. My blog is moving to The Second Road, a wonderful new sobriety website that should launch next Thursday. I'll figure out how it's all going to work during the next week.

Thoughts during a public radio fundraiser when I have absolutely no spare time, and yet. . .

So what else is not new?

Once again, I’m lip-syncing to a golden oldie when I should be getting ready for work. Ah, but there’s nothing like it for feeling down to my toes that life is all of a piece, that the thirty-year-old who first sang along with the gloriously schlocky “That Loving You Feeling Again” in 1980 and this 60-year-old woman lip-syncing into her hair brush in 2007 are one and the same person.

In my opinion, if you can’t devote a couple of minutes of your day to a celebration of your own distinctive journey, what’s been the point of making it?

"What now," the sequel . . .

First of all, thanks for all the comments from folks. I never fail to draw comfort and support our community of recoverers. I get the same blast of warmth from comments on my blog that I get when I walk into a meeting.

I'm 60, as I freely and frequently say. It is a marvel to me that so much time has already passed, but otherwise I'm really enjoying the adventure of aging. Over the weekend, when I was subject-less as far as writing goes, I was thinking about why I've gotten such a kick out of growing older, because so many folks don't seem to fight it. It occurred to me that I'm enjoying it because I'm aging the same way I stay sober: living firmly in reality, making a real effort to practice curiosity, kindness, acceptance and faith.

Gee, that sound like a subject for a 60-year-old to write about, don't you think?

What now . . .

I'm between projects. And I don't mean work projects for they are endless; I mean me projects. The writing that I've done most mornings for twenty-five years. I have three different manuscripts out, waiting to hear, and I can't figure out what to start on next that feels fresh, not a rewrite of something I've already done.

This is where faith comes in. Not that I expect HP to FedEx an idea into my head, but that I have faith something good will come out of my difficulty in dealing with this pause. I will learn something about life or about myself from this experience of having an empty head. I suspect that it will prove to be an exercise in handling fear--the fear that I, in truth, have nothing left to write about.

I'm not so stuck on myself as not to realize this would be perfectly okay as far as the world goes; that there's quite enough noise out there already if I never manage another word. But it sure would mean a huge paradigm shift in my daily schedule. Yikes!! Change!! If I didn't have faith in the process of sobriety, I might be scared. But, if I stop and think for a moment, no paradigm shift looms large after the one caused by giving up drink and drugs.

Fear is the devil's voice. So quick to jump in to any situation that threatens change. I am safe today because I am sober today. So, devil, sink back into your lair and pipe down!