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It has been 1,646 days since my journey began. "Write hard and clear about what hurts." - Hemingway Someone I love dearly recently accused me of writing about my sobriety to boost my ego. The accusation made me angry, and I responded with words I regret. I have spent the last few days examining why I was so angry. Writing a brutally honest post every 10 days is hard for me. I am not a good writer. I struggle with the vanity in producing these posts. I can't deny I enjoy the comments and allure of the social media like....

Day 50 of no drinking. Here is what I learned: I feel more. I love more. I smile more. I am more grateful. I can pull off pink :) Feelings are hard. I still let people down. Not everyone will like me. I still say the wrong thing (a lot).

On Day 60 of No Drinking, Life is Better with Butler.   Stay amazing. Have a great day! See you soon!

 love this photo. It was taken weeks ago. On that day I chose not to share it. I felt posting this picture would be misrepresenting the struggles I was having in sobriety and life, and would dishonor the support so many were providing. I actually thought, "How dare I smile?" But in this moment I was happy. In the middle of all my questioning, I felt joy to spontaneously visit my dear and amazing friend. In this moment I was present and safe. Pictures are just small snapshots of our lives. You cannot look at this picture and know my...

For a week I thought I'd write about vanity, addiction and discipline. For my post (and a little bit to irritate Jenn Ciccarelli) I set out to take the yoga picture that would capture the story. After looking at the photo, my heart had something else to say. I met Kathy over about 4 years ago, a few months after I entered recovery for substance abuse and a few weeks into starting yoga. I started an 8 week basics of yoga class at small shala in Buckhead. I knew next to nothing about yoga. My only exposure to yoga was from...

Day 350 snuck up on me. It is crazy how quickly ten days (or your life) can pass. I have been sober almost a year now. So young in my sobriety I am still experiencing many things for the first time. The holidays have always had strange effect on me. I love the season. I (too) often break out (poorly) singing Christmas songs in the office (sorry) from I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas to Wham's Last Christmas. However, as the Christmas spirit grows around me I begin feeling more and more like I don't belong anywhere and feel very...

The date March 31st holds a special significance in my recovery story.See I didn't just "wake up" one year and decide to get sober. I had known for years -- more than a decade.My birthday falls on the last day of the third month of the year. I often used this fact to challenge myself to do or not do something through my birthday ~ 90 days most years.Some years were more successful than others.Two years prior to getting sober, I successfully committed to not drinking for 90 days.At the time it was a huge accomplishment for me. At the...

Early on Jan 17 2017 I received an email. “I saw on FB that you're going to quit drinking and increase your yoga for 60 days and I just wanted to wish you luck. You can do it. I know [that not] drinking has been on your mind and I wish I knew the magic words to tell you to make it easy to give it up....All I can tell you is that my life has not lacked in any way without booze. It's been better. As Brene' Brown says, you can't selectively numb. If you numb the pain you...

Jan 1st 2020: Three Years Sober Today Three years ago armed with nothing but hope and a hypothesis I went on a quest to change my brain and my life I’ve spent the last two years diving into eastern and western philosophy, neuroscience and psychology. I’ve spent countless hours trying to distill my thoughts into words. If you had known me as a kid, you'd be surprised to learn I became a drug addict. A combination of random events and circumstances, the place I was born, the prevailing culture, the genes I inherited, the people I encountered -- who are...

1051 Days Sober I don't know if truer words have ever been spoken to me. At least that is how it felt in that moment. "The choice was made long before the action," I read his text in his distinctive way of talking. Fortunately my actions were not harmful, except to my immediate mental state, and mild in the grand scheme of things but I did just do something I promised myself I'd never do again. There was no premeditation, no volition, no thoughts to warn me. Data would suggest I was in no danger of falling into this old...