2024-03-06 14:00
The first three steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are pure logic:
Step 1: “I can’t” (drink in moderation, manage my life, etc.)
Step 2: “A higher power can” (restor… Read More
Blog Directory > Arts & Entertainment Blogs > A Spiritual Evolution | an alcoholic's blog and ad arts-and-entertainment Blog >
A Spiritual Evolution | An Alcoholic's Blog And Ad Blog
aspiritualevolution.wordpress.com
Tags:
emotional sobriety
sobriety
plastic tables
gift
woowoo
love
sober alcoholics
sister
lead
morning
an alcoholic's blog and addiction memoir
2024-02-25 18:28
Hi alcoholics and addicts! AA’s Step 11 reads, “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God,” but many newly sober alcoholics – and… Read More
2023-12-31 23:33
For so much of my youth, through so much of my active alcoholism, I believed I was supposed to do and be certain ways to be cool. I saw signals everywhere meant to teach me what was expected… Read More
2023-11-20 16:00
What are you feeling right now? Really feeling?
Can you look underneath that feeling and identify another? Can you take the time to let that underfeeling dilate and express itself? The… Read More
2023-09-08 13:00
NOT an alcoholic, my mom died about a month ago at 97. Residents in the assisted living facility where she’d spent her last year insisted on holding a memorial service for her. It was… Read More
2023-08-24 15:46
Hi guys. I’m working on a real post, but meanwhile, here’s a pitch — lucky you!
My new book – just published – follows my battle to remain atheist after dismiss… Read More
2023-06-07 13:30
Last week at my home group, I noted a difference that sometimes arises in AA. Our group is a tight family. Some have only a few years’ sober, but more of us have 25+. Anyway, the perso… Read More
2023-02-12 20:58
I’m an alcoholic who loves god but kinda wants to kick religion’s ass. I never capitalize “God” in my own writing because that big “G” smacks of scripture… Read More
2022-12-31 19:03
Have you ever heard this saying around the rooms of AA, “Alone is a dangerous place”? I got another lesson last night in how true this is.
As someone coming up on 28 years… Read More
2022-11-13 17:36
I recorded this on my phone last night — and I’m really glad I did. Speech / elocution-wise, I learned that I’m too shrill and often speak too fast to be understood… Read More
2022-10-30 13:00
A few years ago, my friend Rob, a “purebred” alcoholic sober nearly a decade, injured his elbow and was prescribed Vicodin. In mere weeks he became addicted to opioids and, af… Read More
2022-08-22 13:00
About two months before I got sober, a voice spoke to me — one I now know as my angel’s (I call him Egnacio). I’d just driven to my log cabin completely hammered, tea… Read More
2022-05-30 13:00
Alcoholism is a master of disguise. That is how it kills. It shows up on the doorstep of your consciousness dressed as an ordinary thought — a good thought, in fact, a g… Read More
2022-04-20 13:00
On a dark, rainy winter’s evening about ten years ago, I found myself in a run-down urban trailer park trying to find a particular trailer. I don’t remember how I was supposed to… Read More
2022-03-21 13:00
Short answer? Terrifying. Terrifying because to live without drinking was unimaginable — like a layer of my identity being ripped from me. I had reached the point where I c… Read More
2022-01-29 14:00
What’s “normal” wisdom? I’ll never know, so I can’t guess how much I’ve gained from practicing the PROGRAM versus just getting OLDER. What I do know… Read More
2021-12-13 14:00
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved quirky facts. About a million Earths could fit inside the Sun. Lots of lizards have a third eye on top of their heads. Female kangaroos can pick the… Read More
2021-10-04 13:00
Me and the BF in 1980
Yes, alcoholism is a horrible disease that slowly destroyed everything good in my life. Even so, if you’re a sober alcoholic, you’ll understand when I say… Read More
2021-08-08 17:42
Yes, the brains of alcoholics and addicts are indeed broken. We can resolve not to do the thing, we can mean it with every fiber of our being, and then — BOOM! — we’re doin… Read More
2021-07-14 13:00
Recently I learned to my surprise that one of my friends has never told her daughter, who is twelve, that she, my friend, was once a drug addict.
“I mean, she knows I drank; she… Read More
2021-04-26 13:00
First hour with me
Three weeks ago I adopted a rescue-pup, Alice, from Texas. She’s adorable, 10 months old, but was severely and heartlessly abused from the get-go. She can’t… Read More
2021-03-08 14:00
Is there someone in your life who repeatedly treats you unkindly? Do they inflict hurtful judgments, sometimes blatant and other times disguised as helpful criticism? This person is y… Read More
2021-02-15 14:00
Yes, this blog’s main topic is recovery from alcoholism — BUT it’s based in my own recovery, which has a lot to do with my 1982 Near Death Experience and the many paranorma… Read More
2021-01-03 14:00
Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.
Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. …… Read More
2020-12-10 13:20
Hi guys –Just a last minute heads-up that TOMORROW (Friday 11th) I’ll be telling the story of my NDE and path from atheism to accidental medium LIVE via Zoom for the Arizona grou… Read More
2020-12-07 14:00
Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, “I don’t miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time.” As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at… Read More
2020-10-12 13:00
These are some crazy days, right?
My mom, who was born in 1926, says these times are way more stressful than those of WWII. Yeah, it sucked reading in headlines every morning of Hitler&rsquo&hell…Read More
2020-08-31 13:00
For the first three and a half decades of my life, I tried super hard to find happiness outside myself. If I could just get with the right people, afford the right stuff, and be seen in the… Read More
2020-07-26 13:00
Recent events have reminded me how, for so many years, I lived trapped in relentless self-criticism, how I suffered in hating and pitying myself, and how blindly I sought escape from that ta… Read More
2020-06-30 13:00
“The god part” is, without question, the biggest hurdle of the AA program for countless sick and dying alcoholics and addicts. For me it certainly was, because when I read… Read More
2020-05-24 13:00
Who’s qualified to write Cliff Notes on the Big Book?
Absolutely nobody. Certainly not me.
But here’s the thing. When I was brand new to AA, I dismissed the Big Book… Read More
2020-05-10 21:35
Virtually every Near-Death Experience I’ve ever heard or read underscores the primacy of love. Many who visit the other side are told directly that love is all that matters, that… Read More
2020-04-05 20:01
From late February into early March, I battled a respiratory illness I feared might be COVID-19, but then I got better. I’d started climbing mountains again — just boring ones to… Read More
2020-03-15 13:00
As I write this, the world is in a bit of a panic about COVID-19 — and understandably so. Much is unknown. Many will die.
Fear is huge right now because much of the world… Read More
2020-02-06 14:00
When I walked into my first AA meeting — sadly, defeatedly, with all kinds of caveats and conditions — I certainly never imagined that in 25 years I’d be writing a blog lik… Read More
2020-01-01 19:04
There’s a sense in which my life is none of my business.
I don’t know so much — what I am, for starters. I mean, I know I’m a consciousness, the “I” choos… Read More
2019-11-17 14:00
Struggling in a spiritually barren world, we alcoholics relied for many years on a 12-Step program of our own making. We just didn’t know it! Our 12 Steps Backward, a cycle still… Read More
2019-11-04 14:00
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
&mdas&hell…Read More
2019-10-06 13:00
Everywhere I look, I see a big fat dead mosquito. Over the years, this insect has taught me a lot about life.
It’s inside my eyeball. Hiking across Glacier National Park in 2007 (left)… Read More
2019-08-26 13:00
Fifteen years have passed since I learned my partner of 9 years, with whom I shared a home, two dogs, and a toddler, was seeing another woman. I was devastated.
Four years have passed… Read More
2019-08-13 13:00
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. 1) We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
2) We will not regret… Read More
2019-07-21 13:00
We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.
— Alcoholics Anonymous
Saints are supposedly perfect people, whereas mystics are visibly imperfect… Read More
2019-06-17 13:00
Everyone had given up on David Morris. At 45, he lived only for cocaine, and nothing was going to change that. His family once intervened and sent him to a 30-day treatment, all of the… Read More
2019-05-19 13:00
Going to work the other day, I got what I call a god-burst. I was riding my bike, coasting down my street on a sunny spring morning. The cherry trees were in bloom, big puffy dusters o… Read More
2019-04-15 13:00
Hi guys –
A new-to-sobriety friend suggested I try making a vlog (video blog) – so I recorded this. Don’t worry, I won’t stop writing regular blogs! This… Read More
2019-03-31 13:00
My addiction memoir tells how I went from a bright, healthy teen (okay, with a teeny hypersexual disorder) to a lonely, depressed, obsessive, codependent, underachieving, and increasingly re… Read More
2019-02-24 14:00
When I was new to AA, some of the 12 steps struck me as filler to make an even dozen. Being smarter than anyone else in the world, I could see that just 6 steps would’ve done the trick… Read More
2019-02-03 14:00
In my twenties, I claimed to be more than an introvert; I was someone who just plain didn’t like people. That worked great for me as a melancholy drunk, because I needed lotsa booze to… Read More
2018-12-12 14:00
Each year as my AA birthday approaches, I like to take a look back to see how far I’ve come. I’ll be turning 24 years sober this January, and I would not trade my beautiful… Read More
2018-11-26 14:00
I’ve already written a kick-ass post on Self-Pity (Just Say NO to Self-Pity), but today I’d like to discuss its cousins, victimhood and martyrdom. Life becomes such an incredible… Read More
2018-11-01 13:00
If you were to accomplish nothing more in life than treating everyone (including yourself) with GENUINE KINDNESS, you’d have fulfilled your ultimate purpose on earth — at least a… Read More
2018-09-10 13:00
Dying was particularly difficult for my dad. He’d lived a wonderful outward life — excelling in his career, mentoring others, and serving his family — yet he was tortured b… Read More
2018-08-28 13:00
Newly sober alcoholics are crippled. For years or decades we’ve relied on a tool for navigating life — an easy exit to that buzzed state where problems shrink — and suddenl… Read More
2018-07-05 13:00
I recently had a chance to tell none other than Bill Gates, who went to my high school and was at my 40th reunion, that I had 23 years sober. “Impressive!” he remarked. He… Read More
2018-07-05 13:00
I recently had a chance to tell none other than Bill Gates, who went to my high school and was at my 40th reunion, that I had 23 years sober. “Impressive!” he remarked. He… Read More
2018-05-09 13:00
When I drank, my life was always dramatic — at least to me. Everything was a big deal. Drinking both fueled and helped defuse that. If someone was mad at me, if I&rsq&hell…Read More
2018-04-17 13:00
“Spirituality and religion are often used interchangeably, but the two concepts are different. Spirituality involves humans’ search for meaning in life [and is] subjective, intan… Read More
2018-03-21 13:00
In my drinking days, before I was tight with god, I imagined god’s voice as an echoey Morgan Freeman cadence conveying various profundities. Today I believe more that god is all over… Read More
2018-02-12 14:00
Stigma
a archaic: a scar left by a hot iron : brandb: a mark of shame or discredit : stain ex: bore the stigma of cowardicec: an identif… Read More
2018-01-16 14:00
For years and years I’ve put off writing this post. Why? Because I frequently suck at self-love.
Originally I meant to write only after I had self-love down. Sel… Read More
2017-12-26 14:00
True loneliness as a state of mind entails a lot more than just wanting company. It’s a feeling of emptiness, a soul ache with its roots in lack, in longing. Loneliness… Read More
2017-12-12 18:00
‘Tis the season when the spiked eggnog, hard cider, and hot buttered rum are flowing. At office parties everywhere, coworkers will be pushing drinks, unwittingly or wittingly, on… Read More
2017-11-21 14:00
a companion piece to How Alcoholism Fucks Up Your Brain
.
For all those years that I guzzled alcoholically, and even before that when I was a kid, I wholeheartedly believed that alcohol was… Read More
2017-10-30 13:00
Leaving an event recently, in the parking I saw the most charismatic (gay) guy from the group chatting with a woman who wasn’t me, and I became filled with jealousy. Not romantic… Read More
2017-10-17 13:00
Maybe the most life-saving aspect of AA and all the 12-step programs it has spawned is that we get to pick our own higher power. We don’t have to consider anyone else’s views of… Read More
2017-09-26 13:00
“Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 59)
If you’re an alcoholic who can find a way… Read More
2017-09-11 13:00
I’m a alcoholic who lives in Seattle, surrounded by the beautiful forested mountains that heal me on long hikes — which are currently going up in flames as never before.
What&rs&hell…Read More
2017-08-22 13:00
I recently read an article in The Guardian, a British publication, that broke my heart. It was written by an alcoholic woman who quit drinking 15 years ago but who has completely misun… Read More
2017-07-21 13:00
“It Gets Better”
I tried so hard all the while I was drinking. I wanted to live a good life, to do well, to impress others. I tried my damnedest to figure out what th… Read More
2017-07-06 13:00
I come from a long line of alcoholics, pioneers and midwives and professors who knew they didn’t want to drink as much as they did, yet were sucked down into the bottle time and time a… Read More
2017-06-19 13:00
When you’re on vacation, you know what’s a great idea? Going to AA meetings.
Traveling for work, what keeps you grounded? You guessed it, meetings.
Visiting out-of-to… Read More
2017-05-29 13:00
God is super weird. Have I mentioned that? Or maybe more significant to this post, god is always with us when we actively seek, always working toward our growth and healing. &hell…Read More
2017-05-15 13:00
We can’t control the people or events in our lives, but we can ask god to help us change the ways we react to them. When we respond from a place of judgment, knowing best, and ge… Read More
2017-04-28 13:00
In the long haul of recovery, times come along when life’s day-to-day stressors feel overwhelming. There’s something chafing, some problem we can’t quite name. We’re… Read More
2017-04-17 13:00
Suppose I give you an algorithm to figure out whether or not you’re a normal drinker. I tell you to take the number of drinks you’d consume on an average Tuesday, multiply… Read More
2017-04-03 13:01
You guys, I can hardly believe it! “Afterlife” was my 100th post – isn’t that nuts?! And right now there are 495 of you subscribing, so it won’t be… Read More
2017-04-03 13:00
Death visits frequently in my Seattle circle of sober fellowship. Two friends with years of sobriety died this past Tuesday from heroin relapse; one I knew faintly, the other well. Jer… Read More
2017-03-13 13:00
Late to a Seattle AA meeting 12 years ago, I was just backing into a parallel parking space when another driver zipped forward into the spot. I rolled back to make eye contact with the drive… Read More
2017-02-20 14:00
Even though I’ve been sober many years, I find my codependent symptoms still crop up like Whack-a-Moles: I get over one and another crops up. Shame is a particularly pesky mole w… Read More
2017-02-07 14:00
For years I was instantly bored by AA’s 12 Traditions. Read at the outset of most meetings right after the 12 Steps, they tended to have a soporific effect, the words droning past by l… Read More
2017-01-23 14:00
The other day I got a call from a woman I don’t know asking about something she’d heard me say in an AA meeting. She’d tracked me down because she was curious.
&ldquo&hell…Read More
2017-01-07 14:00
Here are thousands of [sober] men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves… there has been a revolutiona… Read More
2016-12-24 22:00
On a dark, rainy winter’s evening about ten years ago, I found myself in a run-down urban trailer park trying to find a particular trailer; I don’t remember how I was supposed to… Read More
2016-12-10 18:00
Paul Johnson was not an alcoholic, but he was extremely unhappy. One night he drank a bunch of booze and took a bunch of pills then went up to his attic, where he hung himself. S… Read More
2016-11-25 18:30
Pledges inscribed on the flyleaf of Bill and Lois’ family bible:
October 20, 1928: To my beloved wife that has endured so much, let this stand as evidence to you that I have fini… Read More
2016-11-11 14:00
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me… Read More
2016-10-27 13:00
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing it&rsq&helli…Read More
2016-10-13 13:00
Sobriety isn’t a task or a diet – it’s a way of life. And like life, it has its ups and downs, riches and ruins. The quality of our sobriety varies with our con… Read More
2016-09-23 15:33
Rarely do AA newcomers like the sound of steps 8 & 9, where we contemplate the harm we’ve done others and do what we can to set things right. I know I certainly didn’t… Read More
2016-09-07 15:39
Holding onto my god-reality gets difficult. Consensus reality refers to what a given culture affirms as real and true. Everyone is socialized to adopt a similar model. Where I live, in… Read More
2016-08-25 14:00
…[W]e had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spirit… Read More
2016-08-12 18:10
Throughout my 20s and early 30s I drank almost daily and blacked out at least weekly because alcohol made all my lies come true. Not my dreams – my lies: I wanted to be right in… Read More
2016-07-22 14:16
NOTE: Hi folks. At this time of summer, I’m hiking and camping all over the place, so I’m reblogging an oldie but goodie for this week. I’ll be back in a… Read More
2016-07-09 14:00
Nine months ago I published “Prescribed Relapse,” a post on how doctors sabotage our sobriety and threaten our lives as alcoholic addicts by prescribing us vast supplies of opiat… Read More
2016-06-25 14:00
Writing the final exam for my college Shakespeare course, I had to close one eye to read the questions, since I was seeing double. Not puking also required an occasional surge of resol… Read More
2016-06-10 14:00
“Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.” (p. 25)… Read More
2016-05-27 14:00
What is “coolness”?
Words are tricky. This philosopher guy, Derrida, once pointed out that words and ideas are all attached to one another like a big web or network, but th… Read More
2016-05-13 14:00
Whatever I write here, it’s going to fail epically because my words can’t capture the feeling of self-loathing. I’ll just end up looking like some pompous dork… Read More
2016-04-29 14:00
Context:
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol… They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense o… Read More
2016-04-15 14:00
Sometimes if I share that I’m 21 years sober, people unfamiliar with AA will ask: “You don’t still go to those meetings, do you?”
The answer is, hell yes! Yes… Read More
Subscribe to A Spiritual Evolution | An Alcoholic's Blog And Ad
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!