In my daily meditation reading, the author talks about how addicts avoid uncomfortable feelings through substance use. They reassure the reader that pain, like all things, will pass, and that all feelings must be experienced and not intellectualized. I agree with most of what the author put forward; however, I never avoided feelings when I […]
One of my goals here is to sift through traditional Twelve Step recovery concepts and make the language and ideas more palatable for agnostics, free-thinkers, atheists, and non-believers who, like me, are in recovery from addiction. I also work stuff out in my mind as I write, with my first draft often becoming my published […]
Making amends is about owning-up for bad behaviour that hurt someone else. It’s about looking them right between the eyes and acknowledging “I did exactly this, and you bore the cost of my wrongdoing.” In the Secular Twelve Steps, making amends is Step Nine, the final stop along the journey of ‘cleaning-up the wreckage of […]
I haven’t felt the urge to post here in almost a month. I have been writing, nevertheless, focused on working the Secular Twelve Steps with my sponsor. I’ve also been regularly attending peer-support meetings, getting out of my cocoon and rejoining the human race. The purpose of this post is to talk about how I […]
It was one of those spring days when you can really feel the strength of the sun’s respite after a difficult winter. I decided it was a good day to hop in my old car and drive up to Algonquin Park for the day. I’m lucky to both (a) have access to a car and […]
Magical thinking is harmless unless it becomes a liability. Dreaming of meeting that special person gives me hope, but imagining the person I just met at the coffee shop is my soulmate because she likes the same obscure bands as me is problematic. Yes, it means I met someone with whom I share an interest. […]
I’ve been writing notes on two topics, security and identity, and I just realized that, together, they are actually one topic. For me, at least. I was always looking for someone else to provide me with security. I’ve never been willing to provide security for myself, even in sobriety. My relationship with security makes up […]
I am sharing what I have learned about my own relapse, a nine-year meandering in the desert that ended last April when I returned to the 12-step program and its peer-support meetings. Over the past five months, I’ve spent many hours in deep deliberation, trying to understand why I left recovery in 2014. It is […]
Love yourself, they say. But what if we haven’t a clue about healthy love actually is? On top of that, ask any ten people to define love and you’ll get ten different responses back. Love is a lot like ‘spirituality’: when we try to define love, we don’t find its limits but instead our own. […]
The Peace of Wild Things 
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