I’m grateful for clearly seeing the mountains again during my run after last week’s forest fire cloudiness. I’m grateful for the podcasts that keep me entertained throughout the day. I’m grateful when I get genuinely excited about things and the thought of having a drink because it’ll “add to the fun” doesn’t even cross my mind anymore. I’m grateful for anniversary meetings being such an inspirational display of how this Program works miracles. I’m grateful our move to Denver has reinvigorated my desire to go on adventures more regularly. I’m grateful for how expressions of my curiosity has expanded in sobriety. I’m grateful for people who share honestly about feeling like they’re lagging in their Program because it reminds me to stay on the beam as life ebbs and flows.
Nature is inexplicably overwhelming in the most positive ways. The beauty, the power, the majesty, the scale….too many superlatives exist for me to adequately describe how it hits. When nature does get my attention I feel more connected with my surroundings, more in communication with my Higher Power than at any other point.
Last Saturday was one such point where I felt nature’s magnificence. Leaving home for my daily run I noticed ominous clouds from the southwest moving quickly across the mountains while the sun blared strongly from the northwest. It was beautiful to see such an aerial dichotomy as I made my loops around Cheesman Park. Soon enough it started gently raining while the sun was still out, a very unusual situation that I later found out is a weather phenomenon called sunshowers.
I don’t know exactly why, but I became filled with glee. Beyond the beauty of observing the raindrops flickering like little stars in the sunshine, it was also a welcome respite from the oppressive heatwave we’ve been having here in Denver. Sure I had to watch my footing since the ground became a bit mushy, but nothing I couldn’t handle by staying alert. It was honestly just cool to see these two contrasting weather patterns blending together so harmoniously. As the sunshowers continued for longer than expected I began reflecting on metaphorical meanings for what was happening. It may seem “cheesy”, but I thought that this quasi-storm kind of represents how I feel in AA.
Life at any given moment is rarely binary. Inside me there is concurrently a storm and a bright, shiny day unfolding. As I write this post I have some scary, existential stuff looming over me. I also have some awesome, happy stuff giving me hope. Being in AA thankfully allows me to live sanely within the complexity of my existence. I can embrace my reality for what it is and not flee with the assistance of alcohol. As uncomfortable things emerge I leverage AA’s suggestions to find those silver linings. Sure the rain roughs up my sneakers and creates slippery trails, but it also cools me down, boosts my energy levels, and nourishes the plants around me. Successfully getting through tough circumstances can be reframed as me collecting evidence of my Higher Power working, thus reinforcing my need to stay sober. Since no state is ever permanent the sunshine will inevitably return. Truthfully speaking, it was probably always there. The sunshine in this scenario being the Steps, my fellows, and my service commitments. They will always exist to lift me up if I seek them out.
I may be waxing poetic here but for me witnessing this unique event became a lovely little analogy for my life in AA. When the actual sunshower eventually passed, I wrapped up my run a little wet and a little muddy, but feeling lighter and grateful for the spiritual experience.
On Wednesday, July 10, 2024, my wife and I were in the middle of a week-long stay in Wilmington, North Carolina, while our daughters attended residential programs at NCSU and UNCW. That particular day, we couldn’t decide what to do because the weather was fickle! Temperatures and humidity were high, fueling a constant string of … Continue reading Beautiful POTA activation at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson and Afternoon in Southport!→
Goooood morning my friends (: As always, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and you all are feeling ready for the fresh week ahead!
I’m having some writers block the morning and would prefer not to bring you all through the same story it’s been for the past few weeks. I started therapy again, first session was great, there’s been a lot of changes lately just in life in general and I need some more time to settle in. I don’t want to drink by any means, but I still can’t shake this exhaustion.
SO, I think it would be best to bring us back to our roots here, something I haven’t done in a while. A gratitude list – my list of 30 things that I am grateful for today.
I hope you enjoy!
1. I am so grateful to be sober.
2. I’m grateful for time with family over the weekend.
3. I’m grateful for the friends I have who are so patient, tolerant, kind and understanding.
4. I’m grateful for our new home and all of the new space we have.
5. I’m grateful for the really good memories.
6. I’m grateful for the old film photos I found that I took and developed back in college that I hung up around the house.
7. I’m so grateful for remembering how much I love to take photos.
8. I’m grateful for AA and the lessons it’s taught me.
9. I’m grateful for my sponsor.
10. I’m grateful for the opportunity to change.
11. I’m grateful that I was able to take my peepas ashes back home with me this weekend.
12. I’m grateful for adapting and evolving.
13. I’m grateful for coffee.
14. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to keep the doors in lately to let a little fresh air in.
15. I’m grateful for boundaries – for respecting myself and for knowing that I certainly cannot expect other people to change – but I can find a place of neutrality and still have a boundary.
16. I’m grateful for how far I’ve come.
17. I’m grateful that I’ve stopped being a doormat (in most cases).
18. I’m grateful to know that seasons pass.
19. I’m grateful for moments of calm inside myself (which can certainly be few and far between sometimes).
20. I’m grateful for a long slow recovery.
21. I’m grateful for the anniversary meeting last night and for doing service.
22. I’m grateful for in unit washer and dryer (it’s the little things).
23. I’m grateful for my health.
24. I’m grateful for books.
25. I’m grateful for comfy sweatshirts and a new anklet from my mom.
26. I’m grateful for the beach.
27. I’m grateful for the city.
28. I’m grateful for honesty and compromise.
29. I’m grateful for being able to write here.
30. I’m grateful for my life and all of the ups and downs and all of the things that make me, me.
Many thanks to Christian (IX1CKN) who shares the following field report: A Breathtaking “Support Your Parks” Weekend in IT-0120 by Christian (IX1CKN) …Day 1 The goal I had in mind was to take advantage of early morning greyline from a POTA reference, combining the appeal of an activating station with the propagation opportunities at that time of … Continue reading Christian Chases Greyline DX on Support Your Parks Weekend!→
I’m grateful for a quiet weekend. I’m grateful for letting go. I’m grateful for a soft breeze and the pirate balcony garden. I’m grateful for what I’ve needed to learn, I’m grateful for chances to improve. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Like it says, “Type Your Email.”
LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:
song of the week:
TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…
Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report: QRPppppp….WSPR By: Conrad Trautmann (N2YCH) WSPR, or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, is a digital mode you can select within WSJT-X. You can use the data that’s generated by the WSPR network to check your own antenna’s performance for transmitting and receiving and also to see what … Continue reading Beyond the Beacon: Conrad Discovers the Unexpected Benefits of WSPR→
Tuesday, July 9, 2024, was a very radio-active day! I was in Wilmington, North Carolina, and that morning, I had the privilege of activating the Battleship North Carolina from inside the battleship. Click here to read the field report and watch the video. In short? It was amazing and certainly a fabulous way to start … Continue reading Carolina Beach State Park: A QRP Oasis Amidst the Summer Heat and Activities→
I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for the way things change and the world shifts. I’m grateful for knowing where I am. I’m grateful for my little garden. I’m grateful for coffee outside on a bright, sunny morning. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Boy, there was quite a bit of back and forth over the sotw over the last few days. I had the idea for “She’s Not There,” last week, but then all kinds of other songs kept presenting themselves. Also, I definitely feel stalked by Spotify. A few weeks ago, the sotw was “Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parsons Project, and now I hear that song freaking every time I start playing music. To be frank, I’m definitely not understanding this particular transmission, but the Universe is quite insistent when it is trying to make a point, so it even started putting this version into rotation:
Anyway, it has been kind of a scattered, all-over-the-map week, but here we are and it feels good to be committed to the sotw. So why this song, “She’s Not There” by The Zombies? Because it’s a frickin awesome song, is why. As a kid, I used to sit in my room at night, spinning the dial of my am/fm clock radio among the 3 or 4 decent FM stations that were available: KRNA (93.3) at the bottom of the dial, Q103 (out of the Quad Cities) and Z104. I think the scrolling, briefly pausing to recognize the song and then scrolling again, repeated 50-75 times an hour, drove my brother nuts. I think this because he told me repeatedly that it was driving him nuts. His requests went unheeded. It must be hard to be a younger brother.
I just thought this was a really cool song and it played in my head a lot when I walked. In a funny way, these songs that I kept on a loop in my noggin, ended up defining parts of the alcoholic life narrative that were so hard to shake. Is it possible that my late 1970’s playlist helped shape the shadowy belief in the back of my head that all relationships were doomed to failure and would result only in pain and loss. Of course, what’s weird about that is that I had no such relationship history when I started to form that view.
But I loved this song, so cool, so wistful. Those definitely became aspirational brand attributes. I write a lot about my alcoholic antecedents, and the more I explore that history, the more I find out about the version of myself that is rocketing through the 2020’s. I’ve written at length about the night I first realized that I was an alcoholic:
I think I was probably 16 when me and a couple of friends made our first effort at getting into a bar. It was a super dingy dive bar on Linn Street in Iowa City called Magoo’s. It was pretty horrible in there (don’t even ask about the bathrooms), but the thing that sold us on it was that they didn’t seem to care about some high schoolers hanging out in there. And we did, it became our regular place, which in retrospect is a pretty amazing (not in the good way) thing.
I remember the first time we went in there, we sat nervously at the bar, trying to engage in informal, we’re so 19 type of banter.1 The bartender asked for our drink orders and my friends rattled off things, I was panicked. My parents didn’t really drink, so I had very little background and the drinking I had already been doing had either been passed beers or a bottle of vodka in Fred H’s car or pink jesus punch at Deak R’s house. I ordered a drink that I had often seen ordered in movies. The bartender peered at me when it was my turn, and I confidently said, “Scotch and soda, please.”
I was 16 and that tasted terrible. The bartender had to have known, but it was 1978 so things were different. As I mentioned, Magoo’s became our regular haunt and I came to discover that the jukebox was fantastic. So many great songs to listen to, and of course, one of my reigning favorites, “She’s Not There.” After a while, I started going to Magoo’s on my own, sometimes pre-gaming evenings with my friends there. Of course, I already knew this had to be a secret. I knew that my drinking was very, very different than my friends’ drinking.
That’s why I was there on that perfect night, the night where I realized that I was an alcoholic. I have so many insane stories, and what’s weird to me is how almost-cinematic they are in my mind’s eye. I’m sure I import a bit of my own alcoholic love of the dramatic into the memory, but the memories are fundamentally true.
The truth is, that “perfect” night at Magoo’s wasn’t so perfect. Yes, I was looking forward to going out with my friends later, those evenings went feral pretty quickly without the need for pre-gaming. And yet…I remember looking at the moonrise over my shoulder, feeling the soft, late-summer breeze blowing through the door, my feeling was peace and calm. My feeling was “things are so right, exactly right now.”
That’s because I had just hit the recommended dosage. I was on my third margarita and that’s when the world came into the proper focus for me—even when I was 18. I was funny and fearless and sarcastic and cool; after margarita number three. But on that perfect evening, I was alone. There was no one sitting across the booth from me taking in my witticisms, appreciating my encyclopaedic knowledge of music, sensing just how cool I was; It was just me.
Looking back, I can see that drinking mostly changed the way I thought about myself. The foundational lie for alcoholics and addicts is that I can be the person that others crave, love, desire, admire, reward, if I just keep drinking that magical elixir. Drinking makes that fantasy real, takes that narrative from hamster wheel to body and we’re off to the races. For me, changing those narratives, the negative thinking patterns, has paved the road to sobriety for me.
This is going to be a word-twister, but can’t think of another way to describe this: My realization that night, the thing that plunged the icy truth into my stomach, was seeing that being the person I thought I was required me to drink. That night, I saw that alcohol had become my secret foundation, the thing that both propelled me to the spot in the world where I thought I belonged and that would ultimately ruin me. That’s what I saw that night as I listened to “Strange Magic.”
You see, that’s what happened. I had played “She’s Not There,” but I hadn’t selected “Strange Magic,” that was someone else’s pick. The fact that those two songs played back-to-back is kind of freaky. To the extent that part of my narrative was song-fueled (remember, I was a teenager when I was writing this draft of the narrative), it makes sense that other songs might stimulate the other dramatic climaxes in the story. I get that my belief that the Universe is sending me personal messages this way is kind of ridiculous, self-serving and grandiose, but I kind of do believe that.
I heard “She’s Not There,” a few weeks ago when I was on a walk and listening to old playlists. I still think it’s just about the coolest song, but I also see how living that narrative took me far away from myself. Of course, the other complication is that when one lives a certain narrative (even if it’s not accurate) for a substantial amount of time, well, it kind of becomes the truth. I think that’s why the Sixth and Seventh Steps carry a sense of acceptance and resignation, grief and loss even.
Cagey, old, veteran me now sees that neither song was “true.” The sense of remorseless loss, that this is how things always turn out, the idea of walking through the world a husk, with the sweetness burned away by mini-tragedies, was simply an invention. My life has really been nothing like “She’s Not There.” Also, the line that grabbed me in “Strange Magic,”
Oh, I’ll never be the same again,
I’ve seen the way it’s got to end,
sweet dreams, sweet dreams
It turns out that was wrong, too. In case you hadn’t noticed, things haven’t exactly ended. I may not be able to finish at the rim like in the olden days, but we’re going pretty f****** strong over here. It’s not that my life is some spectacular sequence of sensational trips, glittery events and restaurant reservations; I’m looking forward to being the only guy in the office on a summer Friday.
Sobriety has been a journey of self-discovery; and it’s not necessarily always been smooth sailing. My happiness these days doesn’t really come from external events or other people, it comes from the sense that I’m finally living my own life; the one that was kind of intended for me. If you wanted to ask me for a song that I think defines me these days, well, be prepared, it’s different than where we started:2
Yes, at this point in time, the legal drinking age in the State of Iowa was 19. This created some complications for me later on, including a trial where the charges against me were dramatically dismissed.
by Vince (VE6LK) Firstly, a huge shout-out and thank you to Thomas K4SWL for letting me hang out here on QRPer.com and exercise my creative writing chops, and to the community at QRPer.com for giving me such excellent feedback in my original article – both of which propelled me into this fun project. On January … Continue reading One CW Question series draws to a close after 6 months→
Many thanks to Karl (K5KHK) for sharing this guest post, which originally appeared on his blog, Karl Heinz Kremer’s Ramblings: A Digital Station in Your Pocket by Karl Heinz (K5KHK) How small can a complete station to work FT4/8 be? With the QRP-Labs QMX, we have a transceiver that certainly fits the bill for a … Continue reading Karl Heinz’s Pocket-Sized Digital HF Station→
