The Last Chance Texaco · Moments of Clarity

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“Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.” -Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58 Some of us have tried to hold on to them without even knowing that is what we’re doing, until it bites us. I was thinking about my conversation with Chris Lawford a [...]

I started writing to save my life.Â Even today, but most especially in the earliest days of my recovery the act of writing helped me maintain perspective and focus.Â I wrote in a medium that was publicly accessible because I was so profoundly alone. The feedback I got really encouraged me and helped motivate me. All [...]

It’s occurred to me a couple of times recently that as a class, we addicts are often born with an unusual capacity to love and very little facility for it. ”We couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people,” could well be understood as, “We couldn’t seem to express our love to other [...] Read more »

Deep down at the bottom of happy, joyous and free lies fear; fear that if I were ever to throw my sobriety away I might never get it back. It seems the older we get, the more times we relapse, the harder it is to come back and fully embrace recovery. I suspect that, as [...] Read more »

I arrived home Saturday night, slept most of the day on Sunday and I’m still tired. Overall I had a wonderful time though. There was a little tension with one of my travel companions who I found to be astonishingly self-centered, but I’m sure I played a part in that. Managed, in the end, to [...] Read more »

I never would have thought I’d have an opportunity like this again. The end of my drug use, and even for the most part the first 3 years I’ve been sober, have been pretty uninteresting and I have actually become pretty resistant to change. Variation kind of freaks me out. I feel so secure in [...] Read more »

I think I hate being in therapy. I mean, they make you look at yourself! And who wants to do that? I thought I’d done well enough having gotten through the 4th step and, after all, I’m still sober. I guess that isn’t entirely true. After an hour and a half with Anita yesterday I [...] Read more »

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the value of anonymity. I’m not altogether convinced that there really is such a thing; not in the absolute sense. It exists in greater and lesser degrees and we see famous people straddle the line all the time. In 12 step recovery we have secret code words and [...] Read more »

But one voice got through, caught her up by surprise
It said, “Don’t hold us back we’re the story you tell,”
And no sooner than spoken, a spell had been broken
And the voices before her were trumpets and tympani
Violins, basses and woodwinds and cellos, singing
“We’re so glad that you finally made it here
You thought nobody cared, but [...] Read more »

It should have become clear to me a long time ago. Perhaps it was and I simply hadn’t the willingness to do something about it, but it is clear now that I can benefit from therapy. I don’t think I’ll make any significant gains in becoming happy without professional help. So in addition to starting [...] Read more »

“Absolute unmixed attention is prayer.” -Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
I realized a long time ago that I can trace the decline of my spiritual health, and a decline in the quality and quantity of my writing, to the date I got a television. For a good year and a half, writing was a form of [...] Read more »

I am beyond furious and my sponsor is out of town. It happened again. I finally got last week’s paycheck cashed on Wednesday and today this week’s check bounced. Obviously, in spite of what my employer says, I need to find a new job. Read more »

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