One of the fundamental tools I learned early on in recovery was HONESTY. It is key to any healing, growth and recovery. As an active addict—I lied. I told white lies that I thought were harmless and I told major lies that I knew were destructive. I lied about little things and I lied about big things. I strung together a laundry line of lies that got so tangled by the end of it that I couldn’t tell fact from my created fiction. The lies were a part of keeping my addiction alive and kicking. The lies were built from…

I apologize for being out of the loop lately. I recently had surgery and have been down for a while. This brings me to my recent blog about medication in recovery. Such a fun and always heated topic in meetings. I recently went to my first meeting yesterday after being laid up for a while with my surgery. I brought up the topic and sure enough sparks flew! There is such an interesting and overwhelmingly diverse opinion in recovery about this topic. It is one of the reasons I love recovery—it is one of the places where vast opinions can…

Well, it has been a long time since I entered a blog. This month has been a little busy, with some unexpected happenings. But I guess that is life!

Amends story ……………

So, I missed my friend’s burial, arrived at the meal after the funeral to have his father tell me repeatedly how important Junior and my friendship had been to him. To say that I felt like the biggest jerk in the world would have been an understatement.

Going to see Junior in the cemetery for amends was one of the first things to pop on my eighth step list a few…

I was on the treadmill this morning running my morning mile when my parents woke up and came downstairs to join me. I felt good, having run a good mile in a decent time and decided to join them outside. They were in town for a night on their way home from Baltimore. I was doing my little dumbbell routine that I do every morning on the deck while they were sitting and pulling on their morning cigarette.

My father looks at me and said, “Ya know Jennifer, I don’t understand, you work out everyday and you don’t eat a…

I last wrote about the Montana Meth Project. While surfing the internet tonight I came across a great blog entry about it. Seems like Montana is actually Big Meth Country….

The blog tells the story of how a rich man made a wise investment! I think the government should direct it’s War on Drugs (Caesar would be embarrassed) money into pro-active campaigns like this one, but bless the independent investor who took it on instead!

A snapshot of article below, but visit methman for the full picture.

“The day that meth walked into our house was the day our life took a spiral,” she…

On this path to recovery, I’ve found myself a much more deliberate person. A good amount of people who’ve known me throughout the era’s have appreciated the change. I appreciate my own new found introspection as well, because my relationships are going a lot more smoothly. Not to mention how rewarding it is to sincerely care about other people, myself, and the fate of our world.

Not too long ago the Dalai Lama offered four days of teachings in Madison, WI. It felt like a blessing that my travels through Madison coincided with his visit-so I went. Of course I went.…

So I got rear ended this week. By a girl who said her breaks weren’t working right and this wasn’t the first time that happened. A couple months ago, a fellow drove into the side of my car at a busy intersection after explaining that he was trying to avoid a city utility truck parked on the sidewalk. At the beginning of the summer, my ex boss, who had me working ridiculously long hours for miniscule pay wrote me a letter explaining that I owed him a lot of money after I left the his business. I took the actions…

By Courtney H.

I have had this big fat resentment against a childhood friend of mine for not asking me to be in her wedding party this fall. Even though my decision to stop drinking seemed to signify a serious barrier to our friendship, I still thought our many childhood and teenage promises of having each other in our respective wedding parties would be met.

The barrier between us began during our college years. It seemed par for the course with living so far away from each other. When we worked in the same city the year I finished my graduate degree,…

by William C. Moyers

Sometimes the best advice comes when readers seek insight not in questions about themselves or their problems, but in querying me about my own experiences. This hit home in a recent letter from a 14-year-old boy.

Dear Mr. Moyers: I want to know what it was like to fall in the peer pressure of drugs and why you did. I know people always say to stay away from drugs, and I know to say no, but I want to know what it felt like to be asked. Were you nervous, anxious and scared? Being drug-free is very important…

by Courtney H.

I applied for two professional positions this week. One would involve working in public relations for the University of Virginia. The other is training potential journalists for seven months in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I think I could live with securing either or neither of those jobs. Truth be told, the idea of living in Africa scares me. But I have always longed for that experience. That desire has grown over the past five years as I have watched several of my friends and younger sister travel to the continent to work in professional capacities while helping various citizens…

Angela, who has worked on this site, sent this to me this week-end. Lest we ever forget….

from The Richmond Times Dispatch

“A woman was killed and a man was hurt yesterday in a single-car crash on state Route 288 in Chesterfield County.

Virginia State Police trooper M.S. Meyer said Megan R. Ford, 30, of the 6100 block of Watchhaven Circle in Chesterfield County was flown by helicopter to VCU Medical Center, where she died shortly after the 12:40 a.m. crash.

Ford’s passenger and husband, Jon G. Brown, 29, was taken by ambulance to VCU, where he was being treated for injuries that were…

by Greg W.

July 15^th

It happens to me every year. I am not much of a morning person but there is that one morning that I wake up and immediately smile. Today was that day and I couldn’t place it. Was it watching Josh Hamilton (an inspiring recovering addict) hit 28 homers in a single round of the home-run derby at Yankee Stadium the night before? Was it the summertime? Then it hit me…it was July 15^th, the day that has surpassed all other important days in my life. It is the day that everything changed. I finally woke up on…

I was a little paranoid the first time I saw one of these ads.

It was twilight and I was scootin’ along a deserted road. I hadn’t seen anyone in hours. Suddenly I wondered, “are there fanatical meth heads running amuck?”

I’m an East Coaster.

I’ve run in circles where I see that meth is a huge problem and that it’s even a choice drug by the upper eschelon circles. I KNOW this, for a fact.

On the East Coast, we don’t have these drug campaigns; these brutal, honest, and sometimes grotesque images that seem to shout, “stop. stop now. you’re being tragic.”

Perhaps out…

As of late my life is a stream of flowing change…ever moving and always shifting. The plan I had—ha—just saying that is funny, isn’t it. But, anyway, the plan I had of course isn’t unfolding in my life. In the rooms there is a saying—if you want to hear your higher power laugh—tell your plan for your life. It is so true. I still don’t know what is best for me all the time and just when I think I have it all figured out…WHAM! It all changes.

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As of this week, I have a membership to a gym again. It has been nearly three years since I have allowed myself such an expense. My Higher Power has definitely made joining a gym possible for me financially, which is another big reason I had for staying away from gyms. The gym management put me on my boyfriend’s membership, so I am receiving a discount through him. I met with a trainer and negotiated a much smaller fee then what they originally wanted to charge me for a few sessions.

I am still not a fan of working out in…

Yesterday was my second anniversary of living a clean and sober existence! Two years ago yesterday, I woke up in a jail cell pretty unaware of what had happened after being arrested on a DUI. A steady bout of hard daily drinking that had been mostly secretive in nature mostly preceded the arrest. I was unemployed, depressed, and terrified.

I spent that morning seriously debating killing myself between bouts of throwing up everything I had been drinking. My day was topped off by over six hours in court and attending an AA meeting. I had been to AA meetings in the…

…and stick it in your mouth. I remember hearing this old timers slogan often when I first came into the rooms of recovery over 10 years ago. I have to admit I found it quite offensive at the time but that was of course because I thought I knew everything. I would share incessantly at meetings about everything in my life whether it pertained to recovery or not, sometimes taking up 10 or more minutes of a 60 minute meeting. Talk about self-serving. But I was green and didn’t know the ropes until an old timer approached me after a…

by Courtney H.

I never know what to say when the subject of drinking comes up. It is probably a pretty sure sign of my alcoholism that I have spent a fair amount of time considering this as some sort of quandary . When I am around someone who doesn’t know I am in the program and they want to know my favorite drink of the moment or when I am going to hit up happy hour with them, my immediate reaction is to clam up, red faced. Then I usually mutter, “I don’t drink,” and try escape the conversation quickly.…

by Courtney H.

When I was drinking, I made many grand plans for myself and the future. That is a mindset I have carried almost gleefully into sobriety. I couldn’t wait for that idealized time when all my plans would magically work out. Then, I would be happy. Usually that future, perfect and imagined place is so wonderful that my fantasies can practically make it sparkle with sheer fabulousness.

Guess what, life just doesn’t work that way.

It took me a while to get it, but lately circumstances have made it woefully clear that all my living in the future can be seriously…

There is a great tool in the program of recovery that I often use to help me determine if I am in balance or way off. It is HALT. I am sure you may have heard of it but if not it stands for:

Hungry

Angry

Lonely

Tired

It is a little acronym to use whenever you are feely funky or just simply off base. This little acronym holds so many answers to the why’s of moods our addiction can play out in negative ways in our lives. I was always told early on in recovery if I was feeling squirrelly to HALT…