by Mark Harris

Pearls of wisdom are generally acquired at the cost of great pain. It is often best to learn lessons the hard way, as many of us did, because you don’t forget them easily. When Isho warned against casting pearls before swine, he was saying in effect “If they can’t see your pain, they cannot understand your wisdom, and in their race to stuff themselves, they will tread your pearls into the mud, even if they are the keys out of their particular pig sty.
In my case one of my personal favorite pearls I accreted in the form of…

Here is an interesting video worth a watch, mind, there is some bold language…

This is a short to go along with song written by a group called “Beans on Toast”, as a recovering alcoholic an ex drug user myself, I made this short film to show the protagonist of this sound bite when he is sober, hopefully it might shock him into changing his ways, however, chance would be a fine thing…

A brave and honest YouTuber reminding us we are not alone…

Here is an excellent New Years entry by the captivating blogger, Shadow… a definite hit for 2008!

Monday December 31st 2007

my thoughts for 2008

2007 is drawing to a close
the future called 2008 lies just ahead.

plan for the future, yes,
but live each day as it deserves to be lived.
to it’s fullest, with gratitude that you can enjoy another day.
appreciate what you have every day.
appreciate who you get to spend your days with.
you may not like summer, but you have been granted another summer, to experience and capture memories, treasure that!
you may not like going to work, but you have been granted another…

Blogger Sobriety Girl has a creative way of keeping on top of her sober journey through life, read on…

Wednesday, December 19, 2007
A Gift.

In the midst of trying to trying to deal with the immense end of the year crunch at work, dealing with parties I keep lugging my diet soda to, painting pictures for friends & family and the general hoopla that surrounds the holiday season, I realized that I forgot to give one gift.
It’s not anything to wear or keep your head warm. It’s not candy or food or some fine tea that I have given. It’s not a gift…

There’s nothing like a little positive sober cheer for the New Year from An Irish friend of Bill…

Hey I ain’t Cliffy, but I WILL have been sober for 21 !! years on the trot (a day at a time) on 1st of Jan 2008. In case these details are of interest to you)
Cool huh! Thank christ for bottled water and gym. That’s all I can say!

But bless. I actually rather like Cliffy. He’s an OK guy in my books.
Well I’m rather glad to have been without a drink or any other mind bending drug (illicit or prescribed) for all that…

Sober Chick strikes again! Perfect for a quick pick me up…

Santa Boot Camp!
Friday, December 21 2007

Hola Family!

Sorry I have not been blogging. I am still trudging . . .

When I first got sober in 2005 I did very little to maintain my sobriety. It felt so good to be sober, and I was riding what they say in the fellowship “a pink cloud.” Bad things stopped happening to me as a result of not drinking. I grew comfortable; complacent. I would soon realize that my emotions had no memory of the pain and despair and complete state of hopelessness I experienced…

I’ve had one of the crappiest holidays in recent memory. People left and right of me were going “home” to visit families of origin that they would rather not see, others were in a buying frenzy, spending money they did not have, just because our culture tells us this is “what we’re supposed to do”, and three of our own team members are in the middle of dealing with immediate family members who all have terminal cancer. I, myself, had just received a call from my dear friend telling me that she was, once again, admitting herself into a treatment…

All the way from London, a Merry Bloody Christmas from Recovery Road….

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

This Christmas was my fourth successive sober festive season. It was fairly quite (although Long Joe livened things up), spent with family and that was all I wanted. I’m grateful I wasn’t drunk or drinking this year.

Three and a half months to go to my FOURTH AA birthday (I’m nearly four, the blog is three…**bangs head on desk**). I was talking to my sister about the past three and a half years and what the first three months of sobriety were like. **shudders**

Sober. Very grateful. Better eye…

Last Chance Texaco strikes again with an addictive entry…

Nostalgia
December 26, 2007

I had been talking to a friend Christmas morning about how “Christmas” had died with my grandmother. This was simply a statement of subjective truth; a topographical map of the geography of my heart. It was not a request for advice or a cry for sympathy, only an observation that all of the traditions that glued my relations into a perfect isosoles of nuclear and extended family niceness died with Goldie. At least it did for me. Revealing a secret sadness is often misinterperated as a plea for help from…

Here’s another great entry on Christmas cheer from Last Chance Texaco…

He’s making a list & checking it twice.
December 25, 2007

Now that I’m well on my way to resolving my part in the first harmed relationship on my 8th step list, it’s time to get busy finishing out the list. I know the book says that I already have already made the list when I took the 4th step, but there are people I have harmed against whom I have no resentment. Thought I’ve just begun to take a stab at the 8th step list I am meeting with my sponsor…

I just can’t get over what a great writer the Junkys Wife is!! If you have a moment, read this entry…

Tuesday, December 25, 2007
A Side Of Pain With That Pain Sandwich.
I just had the most amazing meltdown. It was worthy of my college years, those coked-out whoring years of drunken depressive madness. I haven’t thrown such a huge fit in a long, long time.

It’s just that it’s Christmas, and everyone is either dead or going to die. I am spending all my time working and hurting and being pissed off and having to force myself, to remind myself, to take…

Check out 12stepradio.com for recovery music 24/7.

A Brief History

Around February of 2004, before 12StepRadio ever existed, Bill Z. and Gracie H. were talking on the phone (he’s in California and she’s in Tennessee) about Bill’s vision of one day being able to walk into a music store and having an entire section dedicated to recovery music. (Gracie reminded him that it wasn’t all that long ago when bookstores didn’t have “recovery” sections.) A few days later, Gracie fired off an E-mail to Bill. It went something like this,
“Why don’t you start an Internet radio station that plays recovery music?” Bill went online…

Another great entry from blogger, In Repair…

Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Withdrawal Method
I am noticing a withdrawing of friends. I have friends I have met online and haven’t heard from them nearly as regularly as I did when I was *party girl*. Hmm. Interesting stuff, that. I have a friend who is a sommelier at a schmancy restaurant who I met at the liquor store and we became friends thereafter, but am wondering how long this relationship will really last as we no longer have the *big common thread* that wove through each of our tapestries at one time. Have only the…

This is an entry from blogger, Sober Blog, who has been sober for 40 years…

December 18th, 2007

TO ALL MEMBERS
Greetings On Our 10th Christmas 1944

Yes, it’s in the air! The spirit of Christmas once more warms this poor distraught world. Over the whole globe millions are looking forward to that one day when strife can be forgotten, when it will be remembered that all human beings, even the least are loved by God, when men will hope for the coming of the Prince of Peace as they never hoped before.

But there is another world which is not poor. Neither is it…

A guide to sobriety for the holiday season, by blogger, Sober Blog…

December 16th, 2007

Plan your sobriety this holiday season!…the enemy never sleeps and never takes any time off!
Tips:
Work with a newcomer.
H.A.L.T. Don’t get hungry, angry, lonely or tired, especially while gift shopping.
Visit your local Alkathons.
Parties: Arrive late with a full stomach, leave early, and if possible, take a friend in the program with you.
Whenever you put your drink down, never pick it up again and always get a fresh one.
Keep sweets close at hand.
Make a daily Gratitude List.
And don’t forget, God will meet you anywhere!

…

Fellow blogger on Second Surrender had not written anything for two months but she is back on track, check out her most recent entry…

Sunday, December 16, 2007
Warring factions
I haven’t posted in a long while I know. I am not sure why. Maybe there is a wish to be positive in this blog, and post when I reach certain realizations or milestones. Maybe I am just so busy usually. Maybe I don’t want to bore anyone with certain struggles that never seem to go away.

Warring factions refers to that. I have the same problem I had last year at this time (in…

This might be old news, but Kenneally’s work is timeless and really hits home….

By Donald R. Winslow
News Photographer magazine

(February 14, 2005) – Brenda Ann Kenneally, a freelance photojournalist from Brooklyn, NY, is the winner of the 2005 NPPA-Nikon Documentary Sabbatical Grant, committee chairman Bill Luster announced today. Kenneally’s ongoing essay, “Legal Guardian: The Long Arm of the Law Reaches Inside America’s Most Vulnerable Families,” won over 36 other entries. Matt Black, a freelance photojournalist from Lemoncove, CA, was the runner-up.

Kenneally is the first two-time winner of the honor. She also won in 2000 for “Money, Power, Respect: Real Life Stories…

Here is an article excerpt from Join Together, a program of the Boston University School of Public Health. Since 1991 it has been “a leading provider of information, strategic planning assistance, and leadership development for community-based efforts to advance effective alcohol and drug policy, prevention, and treatment. We believe problems associated with alcohol and drugs can be best addressed at the community level.”

Prometa Founder’s Spotty Background Explored

November 3, 2006

Some observers say they see a familiar pattern in the aggressive marketing of an unproved addiction treatment regimen called Prometa: founder Terren Peizer similarly hyped an anti-AIDS drug, Immunitin, in the 1990s,…

Scott W blogs on Attitude of Gratitude, here is an entry of gratitude…

Thursday, December 20, 2007
12.20.07
Our faith should control the whole of our life. We alcoholics were living a divided life. We had to find a way to make it whole. ~Twenty-Four Hours a Day.
Today I am grateful…

that I heard something mechanical whilst in the bathroom this morning. I knew the air conditioner wasn’t on, although it is warm enough for it to be. Then afterwards I figured out it was the clothes dryer. I have never been able to hear the dryer from inside the bathroom–my hearing is changing!

for…