I’m grateful for running by the water in windy conditions and seeing the waves majestically crash onto the shores. I’m grateful for how much the past nine days have taught me about my sober self. I’m grateful for the sun shining brightly as my trip winds down. I’m grateful for urban parks and how much of a refuge they are. I’m grateful for delicious homemade rajma. I’m grateful for a final hang with my cousin and her kids. I’m grateful for candidly connecting with her about our shared family traumas and how we find ways to constructively move past them in order to thrive. I’m grateful my parents trust me with their car and don’t have to wonder if I’ll drink and drive. I’m grateful for folks who stick by us alcoholics through the pre-recovery years for without their support, their love, I know I’d be dead before getting the opportunity to let the miracles happen. I’m grateful for playing soccer in the hallway with the kids, which made me feel like a kid again.

It has been a beautifully reflective week in my old hometown of NYC. I got to catch up with some cherished fellows, friends, and family. The wide-ranging conversations helped me take stock of how much has changed in sobriety, especially the ways I’ve grown in the past year.

A big part of the growth certainly came from changing geographies. Actually being in NYC it has kind of surprised me to realize the extent to which I have become fond(ish) of Colorado living. I add the “-ish” not to be catty, but because I’m still finding my community there, still assimilating into the area. However the progress I’ve made does give me hope that Denver will be a wonderful place for this stage of my life.

Now of course I dearly miss the people, the culture, the conveniences of NYC. While riding the subway home earlier in the week I was listening to some ’90s jams that I remembered were a part of my playlist (on cassette tapes!) back when I was a kid doing the same commute. It was poignant to grapple with the tremendous amount that has changed over the decades, and yet somehow certain aspects of life do hold constant.

Back to Denver though. I believe that if I’d moved without having a strong footing in AA it might have been trickier. I knew as soon as I arrived there I needed to find meetings I enjoyed and attend them regularly just like in NYC. Without that connection then I’d be isolated and to be an isolated sober person is dangerous. From a purely social standpoint, it is challenging to build a new community in your 40s. Unless you have kids, are attending school, or at a workplace that encourages outside camaraderie, people generally keep to their own busy lives. I’m lucky though because AA is kind of like having a college campus around the world. We are encouraged to build bonds in the rooms, to get outside our comfort zones and say “hello” to strangers as that interaction can help save their life and our own. Part of why Denver has been positive for me is that I have been able to slowly foster a few connections thanks to regularly attending in-person meetings and putting myself out there in environments that welcome such extroverted action.

Another action I’ve practiced a lot this week is “acceptance”, particularly around meeting people where they are. I’ve realized a precursor to embracing acceptance for me is refraining from judgement. Left unchecked my mind can be quite judgy (a clear 4th Step defect), which then precludes me from productively engaging with others. However when that judgmental thought comes and I let it pass quickly – understanding it’s there as one of many inputs my brain needs to assess a situation – then I can move onto acceptance and ultimately reach the end goals of internal peace and engagement in the next right action. Specific examples that arose this week when it came to exercising the above is when I met a friend’s new boyfriend, who I will admit I had a lot of ideas about even before he uttered a word. Another was around interactions (or lack thereof) with the new sponsee. A big one was seeing sights (like the evergreen grove from last week) that were symbols of my painful drinking past. The hardest was certainly my parents and their insistence on avoiding tough, but important topics of discussion. Luckily the know-how around choosing acceptance arrived fairly fast. Certainly consistent prior investment in AA made acceptance easier during a trip that could have otherwise been more of an emotional roller coaster.

As I write this I’m realizing that moving to Denver has served as valuable training ground for finding acceptance. I was (am?) a fish out of water there, separated from my familiar East Coast vibes where I had in all honesty become complacent on several fronts. Denver has pushed me to test whether what I am doing in sobriety is correct – or even sustainable. Investigating what routines, what thought processes, what ideas are worth letting go of and what are worth doubling down on for the longer-term. In a brand new setting my old antics weren’t seamlessly integrating in those first few months so I had to drop my stubbornness (another defect of mine) and soberly evolve in novel ways while still being true to me. This journey continues to be a work-in-progress, and probably will be for the rest of my life, but I’ve enjoyed the more immediate, semi-forced requirement to push towards exploration and experimentation. Because I’ve had to accept a plethora of new things in Denver, it has given me new perspective when coming back to NYC on how to accept things here that I was previously finding too overwhelming, too perplexing, or was simply too lazy to address.

So what am I trying to say with this post? Frankly I wanted to try writing without a thesis statement in my head save for what my quick trip to NYC has taught me. I think what I’ve landed on is – 1) I’m glad AA has helped me integrate into the social fabric of a new place where I had virtually zero connections; 2) Actively and successfully practicing acceptance in a new city like Denver has afforded me a certain fresh insight that makes practicing acceptance in NYC around old concepts that used to frazzle me much simpler. Hopefully that resonates with those reading.

Later today Harper and I are on a flight back to our home state of Colorado. The fact that I can have two places I legitimately call home is incredibly far from the directionless vagrant I was during my addiction only a few years back. It’s a genuine miracle, an immense blessing, and all of it is thanks to the guidance of AA. ✈️

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Sunrise Activation in the Windy City by Tim (W8TMI) I was recently traveling for work to Chicago, IL. I wouldn’t think of a big city as the first place for one of my radios to go, but the KH1 doesn’t take up much room and it’s a new toy I’ve been wanting to play with. … Continue reading Pedestrian Mobile at Pullman: Tim’s Sunrise POTA Activation in Chicago →

I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for AA and HP. I’m grateful that we are getting out, that we CAN get out, that we will be safe. I’m grateful for my friends, for my family and for not being alone. I’m grateful that everything lined up for us, that we have each other and that things will get better.

Good morning my friends! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and for those of you who have off today, get some extra R&R in for those of us who don’t (; 

I was just reading today’s reflection and thinking about how my Daily Reflections book was my grandfather’s. It is literally falling apart, pages coming out, and an old dollar bill that he used as a bookmark that I also now use as a bookmark. My favorite part is seeing what he highlighted everyday, what resonated with him vs what resonated with me and the days he highlighted nothing wondering why. 

Above all else I think that’s the epitome of AA. Just one drunk passing down to another their experience, what they resonate with. I can’t have a conversation with my grandfather but I know he is here. I know he and God and my nana and my noono and my noona and my great grandfather Pearson all kept the dog alive, got us approved for the new apartment, will keep us safe in the next two weeks, during the move. 

I am not feeling better. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel now and I know I will be carried there. That me and Tim and the dog will be carried there by Higher Powers and by AA. AA has shown up for me in the darkest time and if my message can be anything today it is I know how dark it can get. But if you let it, AA will bring back the light. And that doesn’t mean you have to sit in countless meetings if you don’t want to. But let those AA friends be there for you. Let them carry you when you cannot carry yourself. That’s what we are here for. 

And when you are back on your feet you will be able to carry someone else. And that genuinely, is the most beautiful thing. 

Next week you will hear from me in bright and sunny California and I’ll have fear (yes I’m future tripping), I’ll be anxious but I will still have AA. Wherever I go I will always have AA. 

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xx  

Jane

I’m grateful for a weekend with my son. I’m grateful for pancakes at the diner. I’m grateful for a rainy, gray morning and the raindrops on the window. I’m grateful for that new family in Boston. I’m grateful for where I am and what I have. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

By KO4WFP Note: This is the fourth article for my trip to southwest Georgia at the beginning of January 2025. If you didn’t read the previous article, it is available here: Doerun Pitcher Plant Bog WMA January 5th, Daisy and I hit the road again for one more POTA activation toward my goal of activating … Continue reading The Fun Continues for the POTA Babe →

On Thursday, January 30, 2025, I did something I hadn’t done in months—I activated the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site (US-6856). Regular readers know that western North Carolina was hit hard by Hurricane Helene on September 27, 2024. The Vance Birthplace–nestled in the Reems Creek valley which experienced severe flooding–had been closed for … Continue reading Signs of Recovery: My First Activation at Vance Since Hurricane Helene →

I’m grateful for getting to see a gorgeous sunrise. I’m grateful my son is home. I’m grateful for knowing myself. I’m grateful for exactly what I have. I’m grateful for a Friday morning and a chance to see a sponsee. I’m grateful for things that grow and patience. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

As I always say on Friday mornings, “this was going to be so different.” The song of the week was going to be an old Genesis song and I had pretty much written the whole thing in my head and it was going to be so good. What happened, you ask? I watched the sun come up while I sipped a few cups of very strong coffee and did a little of my morning R&R. No, it’s not rest and relaxation, it’s rumination and reflection, and it’s often not a great thing.

He may not know this, but Elvis Costello has profoundly impacted and shaped my life. The song of the week was a hit in 1977 and yours truly was 15 and in the process of having his heart broken. You see, there was this girl. Our last names both started with “B” so we met in the 8th grade when we ended up sitting next to each other (in a row) in a class that was being taught in one of the temporary building behind the junior high. The day we met, she was wearing a “Captain Fantastic” t-shirt and those big bulky glasses that were somewhat fashionable (maybe only in Iowa) in the mid-1970s.1

We became friends, lots of joking around and the walk back to the main building from the “temporary” was where a friendship blossomed. I use the phrase, “friendship,” only because that probably reflected the average (or maybe the median) of our collective feelings for each other. I was very much, head over heels in love. Sadly, and despite my best efforts, Northwest Junior High was not to be the situs of a great love story.

Of course, she knew nothing of this. At least until we got to high school. From my perspective, our lives were pretty enmeshed. We talked a lot on the phone (I would leave the house and walk to the pay phone at the corner of Melrose and Koser, so my brother and snooping mother would not be listening in2), we hung out together in school. We were both on the debate team and when we got to high school I helped elect her older brother as maybe the most unlikely homecoming king in West High Trojan history.3

Eventually, I mustered the courage to share my feelings with her and ask her to go out with me. In a thunderclap of a moment, I found out she had a boyfriend and he was older—already at the university. I mean, I was shaving by this point, at least about twice a week; I knew I was beaten.

That didn’t stop me from trying and it didn’t stop me from really, really, really wishing things were different. It’s possible I made a real spectacle of myself in the process. Into this stewpot of regret, drama and bereft sadness, along comes Elvis Costello singing “Alison.” One of the greatest songs about an ex-girlfriend that has ever been written.4 It’s so perfect in so many ways. The lines are all Elvis Costello super-clever,

‘Cause I don’t know if you were loving somebody, 
I only know it isn’t mine

This was my tragedy anthem. I played this album over and over and over. I sang this song in my head to myself over and over and over. It so perfectly captured the way I felt; the bereft, bitter, forlorn, but don’t worry about me persona I was already constructing. A persona which became an alcoholic dream home (or maybe hermit crab shell is more appropriate). I listened to this song, or sang it to myself on my long late night walks and felt really and juicily sorry for myself. A life already filled with romantic regret and failure and I could barely even drive.

I am going to admit that during the process of coming up with names for my not-yet-born daughter, I did throw “Alison” into the hopper, forgetting that my wife knew how much I loved that song because I still played it all the time.5 I was told that we were not going to name our daughter in honor of a song about an ex-girlfriend.6

For a variety of reasons, I have been unable to listen to this song for a while. Until today. I was looking for the song that was supposed to be the song of the day and Youtube “suggested” this and I listened to it for the first time in a while. Man, is it a great song. And this acoustic version by a very young Elvis is super moving and cool.

This song was instrumental (no pun intended) to the personality that was being constructed, consciously and unconsciously during my youth. It captured my outlook so perfectly, I came to love the feeling of being alone, the feelings of loss and sadness being bravely tolerated, the solitary life being silently applauded.7 All of that sadness and emptiness left a lot of room for drinking, and the drinking sure made the sadness and emptiness feel grand, creating a pretty effective alcoholic flywheel. That sadness and emptiness were like a huge blackhole, one building inside of me and exerting an incredibly strong, but unseen gravitational pull; a pull so strong it warped my personality.

I read this great book a few years ago, “Designing Your Life,” and I’ve mentioned it here before. It was written by two Stanford professors who teach design and the book is the application of the principles of successful design to one’s own life. To be honest, when I first read this book, 7 or 8 years ago, I was hoping it could be a substitute for the Steps and the Big Book—because I knew that was going to involve not drinking and I was still hoping to achieve a less drastic result.8

I’m struck now by how similar the approaches were. “Designing Your Life” encourages an inventory-taking process and one of the elements of this process is identifying the sources of gravity in one’s life. “Gravity,” meaning the things that cannot be avoided, the things that are true, the things that have to be accounted for. DSL (I’m shortening “Designing Your Life” from here on) gives the example of someone who wants to pursue a career in poetry, yet also has expectations about living in a swanky house and traveling around the world. You see, that’s probably not going to work out that way, owing to the relatively low salaries earned by your average poet. That design will not work. That life is not sustainable.

So, the process begins with an assessment of where you are in life, identifying the things you’d like to change, the things you’d like to incorporate. You figure out what can actually be accomplished, accounting for things like gravity, and you develop a plan for pursuing this life you’ve designed. You know what that process reminds me of:

God, 
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
the courage to change the things I can, 
and the wisdom to know the difference

“Gravity” has another meaning in this context. In the cosmos, gravity shapes the universe. The massive gravitational pulls of blackholes are capable of warping time and creating whole universes. I think “gravity” is commonly thought of as something that holds us back, holds us down, binds us to reality; but I think gravity is really the great destructor/creator of entire worlds.

In very simple terms, black holes work by sucking in all forms of matter with this intense and unseen gravitational force. The more matter that is pulled over the event horizon, the stronger the gravitational force being generated, until one “day” when the whole thing explodes and spews matter out at an inconceivable scale.9 Thus, are entire universes born.

Like Wile E. Coyote, alcoholics are bad at understanding gravity.

Among the great misunderstandings that we alcoholics have about gravity are :

(a) This does not apply to me; 
(b) I do not exert any gravitational force on anyone else.

Both of these propositions are demonstrably false. At the bottom of this alcoholic’s wine glass was the belief that I didn’t matter enough to other people; that I definitely should matter more to other people; and that I was entitled to be angry and resentful that I didn’t matter more to those pesky people. A corollary to this was the idea that my drinking was only my drinking and didn’t really “concern” other people.

I’m good, people. This is how I’m supposed to roll. Get over yourselves. Yes, I would like another…

Or words to that effect. I think most of us share that belief, that we just don’t matter enough to the people around us; I certainly hear a lot of people talk about it at meetings. One of the beautiful things about recovery is coming to understand and accept how much we do matter to the people we love. How much the way we live our lives can impact the lives of those we’re connected to. Of course, this can be a positive or a negative thing. I think recovery is actually about taking those negative aspects and reimagining them into positive things, things to be grateful for.

Understanding gravity has been a key to my recovery of my relationships with my children. I can see how my life as an alcoholic warped their own lives, how much they were pulled and shaped by their love and connection to me. For sure, while I was drinking, their love and connection to me brought pain and sadness and anger. Things are very different these days.

Recovery has been the chance to change that for the people I love, and for me. When I see my true self, when I recognize my own foibles, strengths, weaknesses and eccentricities, when I’ve done the work of taking my own inventory and realistically seeing what I can change and then courageously pursuing that change, that has an impact on the people around me. But it’s a positive impact, not an alcoholic asteroid impact, like the olden days.

Gravity is a beautiful thing. Gravity can bind us to each other and to the lives we were meant to lead. I find that gravity works on its own, it doesn’t need me at the controls. My job is to become stronger, strong enough to attract whatever it is that is meant for me. Gravity takes time to work and requires patience, but in the end it accomplishes what nothing else can: It keeps me exactly where I’m supposed to be at this moment. I like it here.

Happy Friday.

Activating on the Road:  National Forests and National Grasslands by Brian (K3ES) After a short break, with life getting in the way, this article continues my series on our 2024 road trip across the United States (Six Weeks and 7300 Miles:  Activating on the Road).  I hope to wrap up the series with a couple … Continue reading Maps, Miles, and Morse: K3ES’ POTA Adventures in National Forests and Grasslands Across the West →

I’m grateful for a run where I could feel the positive impacts of being in higher elevation has had on my lungs. I’m grateful I can “listen” to my body – be much more attuned with it physically – especially in comparison to my alcoholic days where it always felt like a lead brick. I’m grateful for a meeting topic focused on grace and hearing people’s eclectic interpretations of what the word means in their sobriety. I’m grateful for the distinction between religion and spirituality being brought up at the past few meetings I’ve attended. I’m grateful to be of service to my parents, even though I still revert to old behavioral habits/ticks that I need to address. I’m grateful for the presence of mind to course correct in real time more easily rather than let defects linger or overwhelm. I’m grateful for homemade Indian food for every meal, it’s definitely something I’ve been missing back in Denver. I’m grateful to know when to keep my mouth shut and simply let things be. I’m grateful for the Starbucks within walking distance. I’m grateful for AA’s strong presence in my life – consistently investing in it ensures I know how to “cash in” more easily during tricker periods. I’m grateful for bringing Harper with me on this trip as he is providing me an invaluable sense of comfort and affection.

I’m happy to be spending the next seven days back “home” in NYC. Although the email I sent last week has yet to be addressed by my family, a real burden has already been lifted. I continue to keep my side of the street clean when it comes to living my sober life and I also remember that I can’t control other people’s actions, just my own reactions.

On my first night here I was walking Harper and passed by a small grove of evergreen trees. I haven’t thought about that area in a long while. It used to be where I’d stash my 1.75 liter Tito’s bottles because keeping them at home was too risky. My twisted version of “spring cleaning” involved throwing away these bottles late at night in a dumpster around the corner by a neighboring apartment complex. It was unsettling thinking about how many handles of vodka I had stored under those trees. If someone ever discovered them then it would have been quite the insane sight.

In Denver I don’t have those memories at all. The streets, the stores, just everything about it contains only sober experiences. In contrast NYC is littered with drinking memories – good and bad. Having actual geographic distance has certainly blunted said memories from resurfacing as often as they once did. Having a little time as well helps in stemming their relitigation.

But being here again does give me pause. A flood of sense memories have rushed back. In my head I’m like, “Yeah, that XYZ event/place was really really awful”. My life could have taken some devastating, probably fatal, turns on so many occasions. Miraculously though these reminders aren’t triggers. If anything they provide me with an appreciation for how far I’ve come and how much further I can keep going. Sitting here, writing my post, I’m realizing those eloquently written 9th Step Promises are coming true in real time. It’s not necessarily a deeply revolutionary experience or grand spiritual epiphany. It’s simply a quiet, intimate moment of understanding and appreciation. As it states in Appendix II of the Big Book on page 567, I have “undergone a profound alteration in [my] reaction to life”. The altered reaction is that ruminating on the past has evolved from toxic self-flagellation to an ability to find grace for myself. In that state of grace I create opportunities for growth.

Of course growth comes from community, not in solitary actions. That same sentence in Appendix II continues by saying, “that such a change could hardly have been brought about by [myself] alone”. My change has indeed come from living in the warm world of AA: in meeting rooms, in spiritual routines, in conversations with fellows, and in exploration of my Higher Power. Through all those interactions, tangible and conceptual, the solution for my emotional sobriety has been regularly reinforced. Sure, I have this older version of me still lingering inside. That dark soul who is prone to self-pity and self-destruction. However I also have this healthier, lighter soul who is actively working to understand, improve, and be the best version of himself. Proximity to AA shows me how to have greater proximity to that second version of me.

As I reflect on the evergreen tree grove that used to be a graveyard for my vodka bottles, the painful memories are not as overpowering because the site is no longer a dumping ground for my addiction. It’s a visual source of inspiration that transformation is possible: from scampering in the dark of night just to get a few swigs so my demons were quelled to now walking by it in the light of day with my mind aware, grateful, and present. I cannot emphasize the amount of gratitude that fills me to be free from that insidious mindset. As long as I genuinely tap into AA, I will always find methods to derive strength from old struggles and wisdom from past pains.

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Many thanks to Tim (W8TMI), who shares the following article about his portable field radio kit, which will be featured on our Field Kit Gallery page.  If you would like to share your field kit with the QRPer community, read this post. W8TMI’s Elecraft KH1 Field Kit by Time (W8TMI) My Elecraft KH1 field kit is … Continue reading W8TMI’s Elecraft KH1 Field Kit →