Surrender to Win

There is a paradox in Alcoholics Anonymous that tells us that we must "surrender to win." When I first entered AA, I thought that it seemed kind of crazy that I would have to surrender, or give up, in order to get better. Wasn't that was I was already doing? I sure felt like I …

19 months, a car wreck, and a box full of puppies

The past week was an eventful one.  Well, actually it was just Thursday, but there was enough action to make it feel like a week.  First of all, and most importantly, I celebrated 19 months of sobriety.  Who whudda thunk it?  If anyone had told me 19 months ago, that I could and would be …

Hope, where did you come from?

This past weekend, I went to a meeting where the topic was hope.  There were a lot of thoughtful shares (directed, I suspect, toward the newcomers) that caused me to think about my life before and in early sobriety as it compares to my life now.  The differences are many.  In sobriety I am honest, I …

Bring it on, 2014!

I wasn't going to write another post this week, but it seems that 2013 warrants some reflection.  It's been quite a year, and even though I'm not sad to tell it goodbye, I feel like I have had some victories that are worth celebrating.  I may not have felt victorious then, but hindsight sometimes reveals …

Grace…even for me.

I recently read somewhere that recovery is one of the greatest examples of grace.  I have found that to be so true.  As a matter of fact, I don't think that I even knew, much less understood or felt, what grace was before I made my first attempts at recovery. When I started trying to …