An addict is driving along all alone in his car one night on an empty highway. He is depressed beyond words, thinking how miserable he is and how he would do anything to get sober and have a normal life. Suddenly as he is zooming down the highway and thinking, he hears...

Just Because It’s Hidden Doesn’t Mean It’s Not There

The challenge that the book of Esther and Purim issues is to see behind the masks we wear, hiding something of ourselves from others.

As a child, I used to think of the upcoming holiday of Purim as “the Jewish Hallowee...

As we approach the holiday of Purim we are told we must remember to forget the tribe of Amalek. They are the ones who attacked the weak and the weary of the children of Israel wondering in the desert. 

Only now as an addict has the meaning of this contradiction come to...

Now I become myself. It's taken

Time, many years and places,

I have been dissolve and shaken,

Worn other people's faces, 

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning, 

"Hurry, you will be dead before --- "

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of...

Wouldn’t it be great if G-d came to us in big bold moments?  Moments that shatter the mountains and bring earthquakes and fire.  Where we wouldn’t have to guess what is G-d’s will for us.  It would be abundantly clear.  

In getting sober, it should b...

Now the holidays are over, the New Year has begun, the weight of the resolutions you make are beginning to get heavy. January becomes the month of “Step One.”  In club houses across the city, addicts are looking at the year and are trying to get honest....

Dry martini. Lemon peel. Shaken — not stirred.

James Bond is unmistakably known for that cocktail and a variant, the Vesper.

But the fictional British Secret Service agent was no stranger to other drinks, including celebratory champagne and even the occasional beer. In f...

A time comes in your life when you finally get it…when in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out “Enough.”

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting d...

“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and receive without forgetting” 

Thanksgiving Day is the most important holiday for the recovering addict, because gratitude is the greatest gift of sobriety.  Living a life in addiction is living a life of never enoug...

As a chaplain, I have the immense blessing of hearing people reflect upon their lives and share with me what insights have shaped them. Again and again, my breath is taken away by the resilience, wisdom, and creativity of our community. Very often I hear stories that r...