If It Hurts, It Helps.

An old saying always comes to mind when I think about my recovery.  "It takes a village." I had so much love and support from so many people when I first got sober. I was fortunate. It would have been impossible to accomplish that on my own.  My village was as much bustling as it was desolate. It was vast, and it was small. My village was sometimes accessible and sometimes remote. My village was populated with family, friends, doctors, co-workers, peers, and mentors. My village was filled with love and patience, encouragement and understanding. It was also filled with music. It was everywhere. Music became the soundtrack to my life. It followed me, blasting from a boombox on my shoulder. There weren't many artists on the soundtrack. As a matter of fact, it was composed, in its entirety, by one band. Creed. Before I continue, I need all Creed haters to chill. I know there are a lot of you out there. I admit, their lead singer, Scott Stapp seemed kind of douchey, and yes,

Before I got sober, everything I did revolved around alcohol. I drank during the week. There was always a client dinner, a happy hour, or a special event. I also might have installed a beer tap at the office as a "perk" for staff and clients. My friends and I had season tickets for the Rangers and what is a hockey game without a few $12 beers, a hotdog, and a knish? On the weekends, my wife and I always hosted get-togethers for our friends. Preparing the cooler was an accustomed ritual I took pride in. If we went out to dinner, having drinks was the norm. Vacations were extra special because indulging on the beach during the day and then again in the evening at dinner was acceptable or at the very least, defensible.  My  wife  was never much of a drinker, so I certainly did not make it easy for her. Babysitting a grown-ass man when you already have two kids is not something anyone would have willingly signed up for. All of that considered you can imagine the culture sho

My family and I recently found out that our oldest and first dog, Cody has stage 3 kidney disease.  He's dying.  The doctor said dogs with his condition usually live for about 3-6 months. I'm gutted. We all are. I can’t stop thinking about a line in one of my favorite songs by the band Dawes. It’s called, "A little bit of everything." It is about relationships, struggles and regret. It's about the endless and sometimes pointless attempt to explain away why we feel the things that we feel. Pain, joy, suffering, love and all the other emotions that make us so perfectly broken and so imperfectly human.  The first par t of the song is about a  young man poised to jump off a bridge and end his life. A kind police officer is trying to talk him down. He asks the man why he wants to kill himself. This is what the man says... Oh, it's a little bit of everything.  It's the mountains. It's the fog. It's the news at six o'clock. It's the death of my fi

There are 5 stages of grief. 1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance I'm not a psychotherapist, but I had a feeling I was experiencing some of the stages.  Turns out I am. Last week, I found out via message that my BetterHelp therapist could no longer work with me due to a change in the New York State law that no longer permits its residents to receive therapeutic services from out-of-state providers. That sucks but I understand. When I found out, I was pretty shaken up. It was unexpected, and it was abrupt. I had been working with this therapist for over two years and had formed a trust in our relationship that took a lot of time. I have never developed that level of trust with anyone else. That's a huge deal for someone living with substance use disorder and a mental health condition. 1.  DENIAL I messaged her to see if there was any way we could continue away from BetterHelp, but she said there was not.  How is that possible? Couldn't she exploit s

My therapist broke up with me today, so I'm listening to my sad playlist .  Ironic right?  Although, she once told me that listening to music that fits your emotions helps you process those emotions in a healthy way. But I still want to talk to my therapist about, well, my therapist. More irony. Ugh. I miss her already. She said that it wasn’t me it was her. Something about out of state or state lines or some sort of state bullshit. I believe her though. I believe her because I trust her. I have feelings for her. In a patient therapist sort of way. Like a good friend that is always there to listen. A good friend that I pay, that is always there to listen. I'm concerned that she is not replaceable. For fuck's sake, she knows everything about me. She knows my pain and my sorrow. My trials and tribulations. She knows my joy and elation. My agony and defeat. I've been in therapy on and off for almost 45 years.  Most of those years were off and I don't

My first year of recovery was an amazing ride. For the first time in 25 years, I felt absolutely no urge to drink whatsoever.  At that point in my life, it was an unfathomable achievement. I went from depressed, self-loathing and downright hopeless, to a motivated, inspired and spiritually fit version of myself. I couldn't explain the change then and I can't explain it now. The gratitude was oozing out of me like drool from the muzzle of a  Bernese Mountain Dog. My sponsor at the time kept telling me, “You’re seeing things with a new pair of glasses kid."  You know you have a solid sponsor when he can sling metaphors at you with the velocity and accuracy of a Randy Johnson splitter.  My own personal paradigm was shifting, and I was happy to grab me a new set of tortoiseshell frames and run with it. Some people refer to this type of feeling as riding a pink cloud. I'm not exactly sure what a pink cloud is but I'm thinking it has something to do with either c

Every time I open any of my social media apps, I feel like they're all trying to murder me.  It doesn't matter which one. They're all out to get me. At night after I put my phone down on the night table, I look under the bed to make sure it's safe. I have nightmares about Insta and Facebook standing over my prone, sleeping body, waiting for the right moment to smother me with their huge digital pillows.  I don't think I'm being paranoid. Maybe a tad dramatic for the sake of compelling content but paranoid? I think not.  There is solid evidence to prove it.  We all know that all our trusty gadgets have ears. They are all excellent listeners. Alexa, Google, iPhone, Nest, Ring. I don't even trust my old Atari 2600 at this point. Who knows when they collude, what they conspire or how they recruit. I can assure you that I'm not trying to go all Alex Jones on you.  This isn't some  cockamamie  conspiracy theory I swear. When I switched