the swash zone

When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, "Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere."   ~ Shunryu Suzuki It is day 312 of my sobriety journey. The past few days have been difficult. Dark. Tommy Rosen in his Recovery 2.0 talks about "the darkness of addiction and the light of recovery." I was diving into the darkness also known as social media, spending too much time in the anger and fearfulness of current events. Twitter has become a gloomy replacement for drinking. I realized yesterday that I was heading towards relapse. All the warming signs were there: anxiety, anger, mood swings galore, consuming large quantities of junk food, ignoring my sources of support, arguing with the internal committee who thinks drinking again would be great.  Whenever I get close to a big milestone, the committee starts holding loud, boisterous meetings, clamoring for attention, whining and cajoling, wanting to have "just one" drink. I appoint...

"I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.   ~Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha It has been a long time since I've posted here, and a lot has gone on since my last posting. Today is day 204 in my new life as a teetotaler. I still feel so raw and new and unsure of where I'm going. Part of me wishes I'd been writing here for the past 200+ days. I was writing elsewhere. It was a good place to be. I suppose that's stating the obvious. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't be 200+ days sober. The support of friends that I love wholeheartedly has been wonderful, but I feel in need of a different kind of support now. My lovely friends are not sober and while they will always be a part of my tribe, they are not the who...

Misery is impossible with gratefulness. ~ Osho Before I sat down to write this post I was busy drawing and then cooking my breakfast. Throughout those activities, I tried to stay in the moment and be present with what I was doing, but my mind would stray and start writing my blog post for me. However, by the time I put my fingers on the keyboard, all of the thoughts and ideas had disappeared. I have no idea what I meant to write about today. Day 32 and I'm feeling grateful for having gotten this far. Grateful to Holly over at Hip Sobriety for The Mantra Project . Grateful for all the support I've received at Hello Sunday Morning . Grateful for the support and comments from the Un-Tipsy Teacher . Grateful for my husband, my family, and my friends for all of their support. And grateful for this opportunity to begin to learn about who I am without alcohol. Are you familiar with the FlyLady ? A few years ago I tried her method of cleaning in an effort to get organized a...