Staying Sober in Dark Times

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Have you ever found it more difficult to go to an AA meeting?  Have you ever found it more difficult to go to the gym, or stick to a diet, or do anything else that you know is good for you?

So have I.  In fact, I am going through one of those times right now.

I have an internal messaging machine that says “I don’t wanna”.  It goes off any time I have to go to the dentist, or take my dog out for a walk when it is raining, or put on a suit and a tie.

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Usually I don’t have that experience when it comes to going to AA meetings.  I normally run to meetings. But right now, my energy is lower, I am kind of cranky, and I think “I don’t wanna go to a meeting”.

I should mention that I have this experience once in a while.  Maybe it is the change of seasons, it is getting dark a little bit earlier in the evening, and there is less sunshine.

Whatever the reason, I feel an inner heaviness right now.  Work seems more difficult, exercise seems more difficult, going to meetings seems more difficult.

It feels like gravity is 1.3x stronger right now than it normally is.

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So what am I going to do about it?

I mentioned in the last section that I have this experience sometimes.  Periodically I have an internal heaviness. What I do about it is that I ignore the messaging.  I ignore the things that I tell myself, especially the negative stuff.

I put one foot in front of the other.  Literally.

I map out my day, with a list of tasks that I am going to accomplish.  Then I do those tasks.

I remember what I have heard so many times in meetings: “This too shall pass”.  I know from experience that my inner darkness is a temporary things. It is just visiting, and it will get bored and go away.

Until then, I am going to a meeting tomorrow morning.  I am going to exercise right after the meeting. Then I am going to take my dog to the park.  

I will do the same thing the next day, too.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Whether I want to or not.

Because I will be a lot happier if I do.



With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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I Am Responsible

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I do a lot of driving.  40,000 miles a year or so.  So I get to watch a lot of things on the road.  One of the things that I see is a lot of trash.  Our trash.  I know it is our trash, because I see us throwing it out of our car windows.

Why does anyone think that it is ok to do that?

And it isn’t just in cars, either.  I walk my dog a lot, too.  Not 40,000 miles a year, but a lot of miles.  And the cigarette smokers on my street don’t seem to mind leaving their cigarette butts on the street.

I don’t care whether something is biodegradable or not.  Here is my rule of thumb- if I won’t throw it on my kitchen floor, I won’t throw it on the street.

What’s so difficult to understand about that?

—–

I am reading a lot right now about the Bill of Rights.  People are complaining about Their Rights.  I don’t hear people talking so much about their responsibilities.

So let me talk about my responsibilities.

—–

I am a husband.  I married my best friend.  When we got married, my wife and I took a set of vows.  Those vows included statements like “til death do us part”, and “in sickness and in health”.  I learned that she meant those vows when she took them.  She still means them.

So do I.

I read someplace that the sign of a really good marriage is when both partners feel like they got the better end of the deal.  Trust me, I got the better end of the deal.  If you know both of us, you know that to be true.

That means if she asks me to do something, I do it.  We try to divide all of the chores and tasks.  She takes care of food shopping and bills, so I take care of the cars and trash.  It’s mundane stuff, but we take care of it, so that we can take care of each other, and ourselves.

My hope is that we get to spend the rest of our lives together, hopefully in good health.  It means forever.  And it also means a lot of Golden Rule stuff at home.

—–

I am a father of two beautiful young women.  Very expensive, but very beautiful.

I made a couple of promises when they were born.  Something along the lines of “God, if you just get us through this delivery safe and sound, I promise I will take care of this little urchin the best that I can, for as long as I can”.

So my end of the bargain is that I think I am supposed to take care of these little urchins.  That means I deal with iPhones dropped in the toilet, and iPhones dropped off of third story ledges.  It means volleyball tuition and college tuition.  It means that one bathroom looks like a cosmetics factory.  It means 6000 diapers apiece, and all the Father-Daughter Dances I can attend.

It means that if either of them is so motivated to have a dog that they create a Powerpoint presentation entitled “Why We Should Have A Dog”, then……

—–

I have a dog.  Although it would be more accurate to say that our dog has a family.  That means hundreds of night-time walks in the snow and the cold, when I don’t want to go outside.  It means cleaning up dog poop, and licenses, and vaccinations, and all of the responsibilities I would want someone else to take care of, if I was him.  It means baths and brushing and toys and playtime and all of the stuff he needs us to do.

—–

I am a family member. That means that I am supposed to participate in my family.  I am supposed to show up, anytime, anywhere that I am asked.  It means weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Communions and Baptisms, Passovers and Christmas Eve’s (it’s complicated).  It means birthday parties and wakes and funerals and all of the stuff that goes on with people that I love and care about.

It means that not only do I show up….it means that I try to show up with a smile.

And maybe even shave.

—–

I am an employee.  I have a job.  A company pays me to work.  That means that I am supposed to work.  If possible, I am supposed to do such good work, that my company thinks that they got the better end of the deal.

I should show up every day.  Every day.  No “calling out sick”.

I should remember how insanely lucky I am to have this gig, or any gig at all.  I am insanely lucky that I get paid to do interesting, important work, with interesting and incredibly intelligent people.  There are some days I can’t believe that anyone pays me to do this.  I need to act that way every day.

I work with other people.  Really nice people, by the way.  That means I am supposed to work well with them.  I should try to treat them with dignity and respect, the same way that they treat me.

I should ask about their families, and their dogs and cats.   I should ask about their vacations, and their holidays, and their traditions.

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I am a taxpayer.   You may not like what I have to say here.

I pay a lot of taxes.  My wife and I make a lot of money, so we pay a lot of taxes.  More than six figures a year.  By the end of our working lives, we will pay millions of dollars in taxes.

And I would be glad to pay even more.

You know why I would be glad to pay more?  Because I live in a time and a place where a poor kid from Philadelphia can receive a great education (both the kind you get in school, and the kind you get at the kitchen table), and grow up to be incredibly lucky.  I am safe and well fed and educated and gainfully employed.

I use public roads, public water, public sewer, public electricity, public telephone systems, public gas works.  I am the beneficiary of a lot of infrastructure that is freely, or inexpensively, available to me.

My children attend(ed) public schools.  Great schools.  The best schools in the nation.  The real estate taxes that we pay to support those schools is a bargain.  If you doubled my real estate taxes to pay for these schools, I would not complain. It’s a bargain.

In a time and a place where it is fashionable to complain about high taxes, let me be provocative.

I’m willing to pay more.

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I am a citizen.  That means that I should participate.  I vote, every time.  I try to stay informed.  When I know someone who is running for office, I support them. I read.  I communicate with like-minded citizens.

The people in my community who hold elected office do so out of their love for their community.  Some of the jobs are totally volunteer.  I applaud them for that.  Our lives are better for their service.

I have the opportunity to leave this country 5-10 times a year, for work and for pleasure.  Every time I leave, I learn a little bit more how lucky I am to live here.  I may complain a lot- but I am lucky to be here.

—–

I am a homeowner and a community member.  That means that I should take care of my home, and my community.  My lawn should be mowed, my snow should be shoveled.  My trash should go into the special trash cans that we are supposed to use.  I apply for permits for the work that I am supposed to apply for.

When someone organizes something in our community, I try to participate.  That means candy on Halloween, and putting up luminaries on Christmas Eve.

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I am a member of several service organizations.  That means that I should help.  When someone reaches out for help, I do my best to do what is needed.  That involves attending meetings, and taking notes, and making telephone calls, and serving meals, and donating money.

These are organizations that helped me, helped my profession and my community, and helped people I know. It is the least that I can do to repay the favor.

—–

I have a body.  That means that I should try to take care of it.  That means eating right, and lots of exercise, and plenty of rest.  I’m a vegetarian, and I exercise rigorously at least 4 times a week.  No less than 6 hours of sleep a night, and a couple of times a week I need 8 hours of sleep.  I don’t apologize for that.

I need to take care of my body if I am going to be responsible for all of the other responsibilities I have.

—-

We have an expression in our culture, “What’s In It For Me?”  In short, “WIIFM”.  I’ve used it.

As I grow older, I’ve started asking a different question:  What Is Expected Of Me?  Or “WIEOM”.

It’s the difference between the Bill of Rights and The Bill of Responsibilities.

It’s the difference between selfishness and selflessness.

What is expected of me?  A couple of quotes provide good answers.  In Luke 12:48: “For unto whoever much is given, of him shall be much required.”  Much has been given to me, and I think it is time that much should be required of me.  As someone I know used to say, “I am reporting for duty!”

I have a responsibility to provide for my family, my community, my country and my workplace.  I am grateful for that responsibility.  I know people who don’t have those responsibilities, and they wish that they did.

What is expected of me?


With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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The Opioid Epidemic

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I wrote this essay about the opioid epidemic in 2017.  It is as true now as when I wrote it

A month ago, my father texted me and asked “what is an opioid?”  I don’t usually pick up the phone when he texts me, but this time I did.  He said that he was watching a documentary on the opioid epidemic, and the documentary never defined what an opioid is.

You probably know this, but just in case -- “opioid” and “opiate” are used interchangeably, and describe a class of drugs that were originally derived from opium, which is extracted from the poppy plant.  Examples of drugs in this class include opium, morphine, codeine, heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Opioids are very potent pain relievers.  Unfortunately, they are highly addictive, because they can also be enormously pleasurable when first taken.

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The New York Times published an article recently on drug overdose deaths.  Check it out at this link:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/05/upshot/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdose-deaths-are-rising-faster-than-ever.html?_r=0

The New York Times estimated that 59,000-65,000 Americans died of overdose deaths in 2016.  In one chart, they compare that rate to the peak fatality rates for car accidents, shootings and deaths from HIV.  All of those rates are lower than the current rate of overdose deaths.

If an airliner with 180 people crashed today, killing everyone on board, within an hour every network would have special programming about it.  You would know the name of the airline, the flight number, and details about all of the passengers.

An airliner full of Americans dies every day from drug overdoses, and no network is breaking into their regular programming about it.

—–

There are a many reasons for the increase in overdose deaths in America.  One is that prescription pain medication has become much more potent, and much more available.  Several years ago, a new oral agent (oxycodone, marketed as Oxycontin), was approved for marketing.  This drug has become widely available not only for prescription use, but also for abuse.

At the same time, the supply of heroin has increased and the cost has decreased. Heroin is now much more available, much more widely used, and less expensive than when I was growing up.  Supposedly, the cost of a dose of heroin is now less than the cost of a bottle of beer.  When I was in high school, the “gateway drugs” were marijuana and alcohol.  Not now.

One other reason is that other very potent drugs (fentanyl and carfentanil) are being sold as heroin.  Fentanyl is more potent than heroin, and carfentanil is said to be 1000-5000 times more potent than heroin.

If someone thinks that they are injecting heroin, but receives either fentanyl or carfentanil, they are going to die.

—–

The opioid epidemic is not some far-away problem that only happens in a newspaper.  It is a local problem that is killing people who live near me.  Drug overdoses now look like this in my area:

Last week, two men died of heroin overdoses not too far from where I live.  What made their overdoses even more remarkable was that they were house managers in a local halfway house.  They were the ones in charge of oversight at their facility.

The same week, 8 addicts died of overdoses in another small town not too far from where I live.

A recent local high school graduate died of an opiate overdose a few weeks ago.

A Philadelphia Inquirer article noted that Philadelphia had 900 fatal overdoses in 2016.  Bucks County had 185.  The same article included an old estimate of 10 fatal overdoses a day in Pennsylvania- and then noted that that estimate might be low now.

10 people lose their lives every day in my state from a preventable problem.  And either we have become used to it, or we don’t know about it.

—–

This is a complicated problem with no easy answers.  It would be intellectually lazy to say “just cut off the supply”.  The supply is not just illegal drugs like heroin.  It also includes prescription drugs that are diverted.  The problem is not just at our borders -- it is also in our doctor’s offices and our pharmacies and our own medicine cabinets.

I read that the United States consumes 80% of the world supply of opiates.  We have 4% of the world population.  There is something wrong with that.

—–

Fortunately there is hope.  Treatment exists.  I know two young men who recently were in treatment for opioid addiction, and both are now in recovery.   But every day that they remain in recovery, almost 200 Americans are going to die from drug overdoses.

And I don’t know what to do about that.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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The Challenge of Being an Introvert in Alcoholics Anonymous

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Have you ever taken one of the “personality type” profiles at work?  There is a popular one called the Myers-Briggs Indicator. You answer approximately 60 questions, and you receive feedback about four different indicators.  One of them is whether or not you are an introvert or an extrovert.

I have taken this test four different times (it was popular for a while in my industry).  Every time I took it, I received the same feedback: I am really organized about my time (that’s good), and I am almost painfully introverted (not so good).

In my alcoholism, I never really liked to go to bars or clubs. There were drunk people there, and drunk people annoyed me. I didn’t like hanging out with other people who were drinking.  I preferred drinking by myself.

The good news is that I wasn’t doing a lot of drinking and driving, because I was doing my drinking alone by myself. The bad news was that I was home alone, doing my drinking by myself. And almost no one knew.

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I was lucky enough (blessed?) to get sober in 1990.  One of the things that I was told was that I should go to an AA meeting every day, for at least 90 days.  (My sponsor said “120 meetings wouldn’t hurt!”). So I went to a lot of meetings. I still do.

The challenge for me has been that I am still the same introvert that I have always been.  And my meetings are full of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed people who are on fire with the idea of interacting with other people.

In AA, we talk about Unity (through the Traditions), Recovery (through the Steps), and Fellowship.  I struggle with the Fellowship part. I struggle when people invite me out for coffee. “Struggle” means I don’t want to.  I do not want to go out to a diner with people I don’t know that well, and try to make small talk.

If you are an extrovert, you might be thinking “that sounds like a really good time!”  For me, that sounds like torture. I get very anxious when I have to talk to several people at the same time.  I am much more comfortable in intimate 1-1 conversations.

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I do understand the importance of making connections with other people. I have been sober for 28 year,  I’ve been married for 25 years, I have worked in my chosen field for 30+ years.

I understand how important my relationship with other people is.  I know that I cannot do this alone. I need help (see my essay “I Need Help” for more about this....).  

I do participate in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. But instead of having 100 close friends (I don’t even know if that is possible), I have a handful of people that I consider very close friends.  They are friends for life. They know everything about me, and I know everything about them.

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If you are an introvert, and you are new to AA (or any other twelve step fellowship), please know that you can recover every bit as much as the extroverted people.  

Find one or two people that you really trust, and get close to them.  Sit next to them at meetings. Call them, and try to get to know them.  Just as importantly, let them get to know you.

If you are like me, you also need help getting sober and staying sober.  You may not wind up with hundreds of friends in recovery, but you might wind up with a few very close friends for life, as well as a wonderful life in sobriety.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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Physical Pain And Spiritual Pain

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Sometimes I make a sound when I’m surprised, that sounds like “huh”.

I passed a billboard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike recently.  “152 Montgomery County residents died of drug overdoses last year.

I made a sound of “huh”.

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More Americans died of drug overdoses in 2015 than from car accidents. And a lot of Americans died in car accidents last year.

While I didn’t know any of the 152 people who overdosed and died last year in Montgomery County, I know several people who have died as a result of overdoses in Chester County, and Philadelphia County.

Pharmacists.  Professional people.  Family people.  People like you and me.

—–

Opiates are a class of pain medication that includes morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone,  and others.  Some are available by prescription, and some (like heroin) are available illegally.  They are very effective, and very potent, relievers of physical pain.

If I remember my pharmacy school classes well (there is no guarantee of that…), opiates bind at the mu receptor in the central nervous system to create the effect of analgesia.  In other words, they block pain by interacting at a cellular level.  The effect is so pleasurable that some users want to re-create the experience over and over again.

Opiates can be very addictive.

—–

I just finished reading an article about an epidemic of fentanyl use in Canada. 

According to the article, fentanyl (an opiate 100x more potent than morphine) is widely available, and can be ordered online.  It is being mass-produced overseas, and shipped directly to the homes of Canadian addicts.

In the United States, we have the same problem with oxycodone.  American users purchase prescription opiates online (or on the street, or with a physician’s prescription).

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Some municipalities have taken to providing an opiate antidote, naloxone, to those who request it. The antidote is highly effective if it is administered quickly to someone who is experiencing an opiate overdose.

While I support this measure, it really only scratches the surface of the problem. 

Providing naloxone to those who are overdosing will save some people from overdosing.  But it won’t decrease the supply of opiates, and it won’t decrease the demand for them, either.

The “war on drugs” didn’t decrease the demand for drugs, and it didn’t decrease the supply of drugs, either.  It just created a much larger prison system.  We have way more people imprisoned in 2016 for drug offenses than we did in 1980, and more drug use too.

The supply of drugs isn’t going to go away.  In the article I read about Canada’s

fentanyl problem, the authors described the economics of drug distribution.  A user can purchase $10,000 worth of raw fentanyl powder, tablet filling supplies, and a tablet press, and sell the end product for as much as  $2,000,000 worth of fentanyl tablets.

That is a 200x profit.  As long as 200-fold profits are available, someone will be willing to sell drugs, regardless of the consequences.

—–

The drug epidemic is a problem that doesn’t have an easy answer.  I wish it did.  So what follows are not suggested solutions.  They are some of my thoughts about the problem:

What if the problem isn’t about drugs?  The kinds of drugs we are dealing with existed 50 years ago.  Some of the drugs are new, but they are really new variations of older drugs.  What if the drug epidemic is a symptom of something else?

What if the problem is with us?  What if we changed?  Suppose the problem is that we seek temporary comfort from permanent problems?

What if the type of pain that we are trying to medicate isn’t physical pain?  What if the type of pain our society is trying to medicate is spiritual pain?  What if opiates can’t scratch the kind of itch that we have?

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I don’t like to ask these questions.  I would much rather stick my head in the sand and hope that the problem goes away.

But no matter how much I stick my fingers in my ears and say “na na na na I can’t hear you!”, the reality is still there.  Right in front of me on a billboard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
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Write to me at TheRecoveringUrchin@gmail.com, and I promise I will respond.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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My 38th Street Bridge Blackout

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My friend Michael suggested that I write about a couple of my blackouts.  He thought it would be helpful for some of the newcomers visiting this site.  Here is one of them.

So let me set the scene.....it was 1979, I was going to school in West Philadelphia.  I was 17 years old, and I was working in a bar call Doc Watson’s. (Go back and read that again-I was 17, and working in a bar).

Doc Watson’s was a dive bar.  College students could get a cheap pitcher of beer and a pizza for about $5.  From Thursday night through Sunday night, the place was always packed. I waited tables, delivered pizza and beer to my classmates, and made at least $100 in tips every night.  One hundred dollars a night was a lot of money forty years ago.

My shift was from 4pm until 2 am, two to three nights a week.  The hours from 4pm until 9pm were kind quiet, with the pizza-eaters.  At about 9pm, the beer drinkers came in, and the bartenders filled pitchers of beer as fast as they could.

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Doc Watsons was where I learned to drink hard.  Up until then, I had a casual approach to my drinking.  But at this bar, we had 15 minutes (from 2 am until 2:15 am) to clean up, and drink as much as we wanted for free.  Since there was only 15 minutes between 2 am and 2:15, I spent less time on “cleaning up”, and more time on “drinking as much as I wanted for free”.

Over the course of several weeks, I learned how to drink at least a pitcher of beer in that 15 minute period.  I learned to drink fast. That didn’t seem to be a problem for me. I lived about 4 blocks from the bar. I would get drunk, and glide back to my dormitory with a buzz and a hundred dollars in my pocket.

One night I lost track of how much I had to drink.  (Everything I am about to share with you has been told to me by other people).  I probably had at least 1 1/2 pitchers of beer in 15 minutes. I walked out of the bar, and headed for the 38th Street Bridge, which was a pedestrian bridge along my route back to my dormitory.

The route that I was SUPPOSED to take was:

1) leave the bar, walk one block

2) turn left, cross the bridge, walk two blocks

3) turn right, go one block to my dorm

Two turns, four blocks.  I had done this walk a hundred times.  I still have the map imprinted in my brain.

But on this night in 1979, I made it to the bridge, and I got lost.  I crossed over the bridge three or four times. A campus police officer approached me, and asked me if I was lost.  I don’t know what I said to the police officer, but if I had been honest, I would have sung from Blind Faith’s song and sung “I am wasted, and I can’t find my way home”.

-----

Looking back at that evening, there are several things that seem remarkable to me now:

I was four blocks from my dorm, I had walked that route a hundred times, and I was so blindly drunk that I got lost.

A police officer escorted me back to my dorm, and delivered me to my roommate.

I did not freeze to death.  I did not fall off the bridge and die.  I did not get arrested.

I saw nothing wrong with what had happened.  Neither did anyone else. Not my school, not my roommate, not my co-workers.  But especially not me.

I repeated most of that evening many more times while I worked at that bar.

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Why do I write this for you?

If you are a newcomer, you should know that blackouts happen to alcoholics.  Blackouts are memory losses that happen when we have way too much to drink. Normal drinkers don’t have blackouts, because normal drinkers don’t drink that much.

I didn’t know that.  I didn’t realize that I had blackouts until I went to rehab and someone explained to me what was happening.

I haven’t had a blackout like that since I got sober.

If you get sober, you won’t have any more blackouts either.


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Write to me at TheRecoveringUrchin@gmail.com, and I promise I will respond.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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Who are you?

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Who Are You?

Where Are You?

How Are You?

Those words were printed on the inner liner notes of the Grateful Dead’s 1971 album of the same name.

They added a mailing address, and asked their fans, known as DeadHeads, to write to them. The

Grateful Dead opened a line of communication with those three questions. No band had ever tried to

do that before. It was revolutionary.

Thousands of DeadHeads responded. The Grateful Dead took those names, and created a mailing list.

The band used that list for 50 years as a way of staying in touch with its fans.

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Please allow me to ask you the same three questions:

Who Are You?

Where Are You?

How Are You?

And in addition, I have a few more questions for you:

Do you like what we are doing here at The Recovering Urchin?

What should I be writing about?

What can I do to help support your recovery?

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Write to me at TheRecoveringUrchin@gmail.com, and I promise I will respond.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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Guest post: Zen Spot #155 — Mindfulness, meditation and letting sleeping dogs lie

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Hammurabi

Apologies can have an almost otherworldly power. To reach out, after having committed an error, recognizing that your behavior caused pain, can bring about a rare intimacy. Too, reaching out can result in Hammurabi chewing off an equal portion of whatever. The unpredictability is excruciating. Walk into an apology with your face or loins covered and your sincerity can be questioned. Arrive defenseless and the bleeding could be profuse and extended.

Nine

Among the rationale for making amends during AA’s ninth step, as far as I am concerned, is the humbling pain one must endure as forgiveness is requested. If done correctly and thoughtfully, with the desire to do whatever is necessary to make amends at the forefront, the executor’s desire to never repeat the process can be a resource from which to pull the strength not to indulge when the opportunity presents itself.

That said, every person whose forgiveness I requested acted with an astonishing grace. My loins were sincerely exposed. None punted. 

Abscesses and my memory

I’ve written of blackouts. Weeks of blackouts. Time given away, and taken back spontaneously, years after, when a memory flashes back, bringing with it remorse that I thought was gone. 

Flashbacks bring reflexive facial contortions. The taste of an abscess bubble bursting on my gums is less bitter. Sometimes my head shakes back and forth spontaneously and automatically even before the memory arrives.

Abscesses and other people’s memories

The problem with a fearless and thorough accounting of one’s behavior is that many of the aggrieved don’t remember the grievance and, when approached, offer only a quizzical look. That said, in my case, almost everybody possessed a memory deserving of an apology for which I had no corresponding flashback. No matter.

The dogs

The latest boomerang to fly out of the dark and land at my feet concerned a client from twenty years ago. The indiscretion will go unnamed, but the compulsion to appropriately debit and credit the metaphysical balance sheet became overwhelming. An email was drafted. A phone call was pondered. Neither was executed.

I knew he wouldn’t remember and I knew he would forgive me. Of these two facts, I am absolutely sure. 

Forgiveness for the things I can’t remember found at the heart of the things I can remember. As the boomerangs continue to land at my feet, with this man in particular, my certainty in his grace allows me to forgive myself.

This has been a guest post by DharmaMechanic.

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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The Taping Pit

The Grateful Dead played more than 2300 concerts between 1964 and 1995.  They were known for their unique improvisational style, and also their unique way of bringing their music to their fans.

Most bands in the 1960s and 1970s recorded albums, and did a little bit of touring to support the sales of the album.  The Grateful Dead did things the opposite way. They would do a little bit of recording, in order to support their ability to go out on the road and bring their music directly to their fans.

They loved playing their music in front of fans.  They felt that what they were doing couldn’t be properly expressed in the confines of a recording studio.   They enjoyed looking into the audience and seeing (and hearing) their fans singing along with songs that had never been recorded on an album.  (When your fans know the words to songs that haven’t been recorded on an album, you have dedicated fans).

The Grateful Dead were the first band to allow their fans to tape their shows.  That was revolutionary at the time. Their record company tried to stop the fans from recording, but the band said “once we play a concert, we are done with it-let the fans have it!”  So many people wanted to tape their shows that the Grateful Dead set up a special section for tapers, called “The Taping Pit”. The taping pit at a Grateful Dead show typically looked something like this:

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Deadheads would tape the shows of the Grateful Dead, and then listen to those tapes.  They also would make copies of those tapes, and trade them with their friends. Most Deadheads initially heard the Grateful Dead by listening to these homegrown concert tapes.

The members of The Grateful Dead were initially surprised when they saw people recording their concerts and following them from town to town.  They were amazed at the response, and the dedication required to tape them and follow them around.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I was one of those people that followed the band from town to town.  I loved the idea that every show was different (they never played the same setlist twice), and even when they did play the same song a few days apart, that song would be played differently.

I went to a lot of Grateful Dead shows, because there was always the possibility of magic when the house lights went down.

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Like the Grateful Dead, I am trying to make magic.  But instead of making musical magic, I am trying to make recovery magic.  Like The Grateful Dead, I want to give it away to as many people as I can.  I love what I do. I am ridiculously lucky to be able to write for people who love to read my writing.

On a personal note- I wrote a book of essays last year (not recovery essays-just personal essays-under my actual name) and published it.  People enjoyed my book so much that some of them started scalping it on Ebay. Others started making pdf copies of my book, and sold those copies in other countries.  I was delighted. If someone wants to read my writing so much that they are willing to copy it and sell it, that is great news. I want people to read what I am writing-and I don’t care how that happens!

So if you want to set up microphones in The Taping Pit and record this, go ahead.  If you want to share it with other people, go ahead. If you want to copy it and use it or read it to someone else, go ahead.  The record company may not like it, but what does the record company know?

Eight weeks into the life of this site, we have an email subscription list, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and people are subscribing with an RSS feed.  We will soon launch an Instagram page, because I think younger people will connect better that way.

If you want to get in touch, email me at

TheRecoveringUrchin@gmail.com

Now it’s time for the house lights to go down.  Let the magic begin....

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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The Lou Gehrig of Recovery

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On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig stood in front of a full Yankee Stadium at his retirement ceremony, and said “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.

Remarkable words for a man who had been given a death-sentence diagnosis days before (Amylotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also now known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

He later acknowledged that diagnosis by stating “so I close by saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for”.

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I think of myself as the Lou Gehrig of recovery.  I am the luckiest person I know on the face of the earth.  On the one hand, I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. Those are two diagnoses that have grim prognoses.  Everyone that I went to rehab with is dead. Many of the fellows I got sober with in my profession are dead.  The same with members of my home group.

On the other hand, I have been sober all day today (ever since I woke up at 5 am, walked my dog, and went to a 6:30 a.m. meeting).  I’ve been fortunate enough to be sober for about 10,385 days before that, too.

I am incredibly lucky.  Maybe it is blessed, maybe it is grace, I don’t know what to call it.  But I haven’t had a drink or a drug all day, I am a free man, my dog is asleep next to me, and I don’t have any problems in the world compared to the problems I had in the last 18 months of my active alcoholism.

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There is a thought that I’ve heard shared in meetings near me.  The thought is “if everyone in the meeting threw their problems onto the table, and had a choice of which set of problems to take back, I would take my own problems back”.  That is absolutely true for me.

Do I have problems?  Sure I do. Everyone does.  But the problems that I have today are living problems.  The problems I had in the last 18 months of my active alcoholism were drunk and junkie problems.

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So again I say, Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth-the Lou Gehrig of Recovery.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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