
A reminder for Thanksgiving
“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 enough. There was never enough love, never enough friends, and surely never enough alcohol or drugs to fill the void. And yet, once the sun shines on a new way of living, a new hope is born. First with a friend and

Drawing life lessons from Jacob’s story
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 revolve around a life-changing moment, an experience that forever changed a person’s approach to the world. Sometimes tragic and sometimes full of beauty, these moments take us outside of our usual reality, and r

Love, Hate and Living Sober
The first thing you should know about Scott is that Scott isn't his real name. Everything else you're about to read, however, is 100 percent true. Starting with how he opened his email to me. "My name is Scott," he wrote, "and I am an alcoholic." He had a normal upbringing, to the extent anything can be considered normal these days. But his parents are still together, there were no money issues in the home, and no tragedy befell Scott. To his friends, family and teachers, he