Circle of Family and Friends – You and Your Personal Community

I just finished reading comments from thirty of you who have written in response to my blog and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that you took the time to write.  I know how busy we all are so it makes me feel included in your life when you read these brief essays and then comment.  It makes the effort on my end so very worth it!  I hope you keep staying "the course" with me. There are so many things in my life that I'm grateful for.  First, my sobriety. Without it, I'd be short a great husband, many wonderful friends, good health, and work that truly blesses[...]

I have been receiving so many comments from readers like you and I can't express adequately what it means to me.  I love my work, both the writing and the workshops, but much of it is solitary.  When readers comment, whether in the affirmative or taking exception to what I have said or written, I at least know we have "touched" each other.  Our connectedness is the pathway to healing and wholeness.  No one "gets well" from any malady in isolation. I was thinking about the topic of connection this morning when I went to see an eye doctor.  I had never met h[...]

I heard a speaker yesterday talk about the importance of letting the other people in our lives know that they are making a difference to us.  We can do this in myriad ways.  Obviously we can say thank you.  We can make eye contact and smile.  We can send a note of gratitude.  Even an e-mail counts. We can reach out and physically touch our fellow travelers in a loving way. That's one of my favorites.  I like to reach out and offer a hand or a hug to the person who stands before me.  I get great satisfaction giving away that which I also want to receive.[...]

Eddie, my young nephew, a 17 year old high school senior, was injured in a terrible automobile accident two days ago in Lafayette, Indiana.  He was driving to school in the early AM, fell asleep at the wheel of his white Ford pick up, and hit a dump trunk head on.  Were it not for seat belts and air bags, he'd not have survived. Fortunately the man in the dump trunk was wearing a seat belt too and he walked away unharmed.  Eddie wasn't so lucky.  He will be recovering for some time.  But he's alive.  He's still alive. Perhaps he needs to get to bed earlie[...]

I just returned from a four day workshop on "detachment" that I offered at the Dan Anderson Renewal Center at Hazelden Foundation in Center City, MN.  What a powerful week end for me, exhausting in a good way.  And what an incredibly open, loving group were present for it.  You don't always have a group of twenty-five who can allow themselves to be as vulnerable as these men and women were.  There were tears, for sure; moments of confusion, angst over situations beyond one's control at home, lots of frustration and fear too about the primary question: "What if[...]

For decades I danced around the lives of others, generally as a way of seeking attention and approval.  When others failed to acknowledge me or if they criticized me, I was devastated, certain that I was soon to be rejected.  What a sorry mess my life was for more than three decades.  Alcohol relieved the angst up to a point but not forever.  Thank goodness.  As I have said in other blogs, revealing so much about myself may seem foolish to some who are reading this but I believe that sharing our vulnerabilities is what helps every one of us heal. My introd[...]