“Most addicts here,” he says, “come with an empty glass inside them; when they take heroin, the glass becomes full, but only for a few hours, and then it drains down to nothing again. The purpose of this program is to gradually build a life for the addict so they can put something else into
The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection. It’s all I can offer. It’s all that will help [you] in the end. If you are alone, you cannot escape addiction. If you are loved, you have a chance. For a hundred years we have been singing war songs about addicts. All along, we should have
Over the last year, writing here has been more sporadic. I was working through some things, taking some time to write my words for no one but God and me to see. I was feeling a bit like my words had been stolen – like I was sucker punched and they were ripped right from
“Mommy, watch my cartwheel. Did you see that one? Was it good? Did I do good? Look, I’ll do another one. Did you see that one? Was that one better?” “Yes, sugar, they look great. They’re all great! You’re doing so good – getting better and better! Why don’t you go practice over there while
I’ve always been very aware that I am a lot. Just – a lot of person for people to handle. I remember feeling aware of this at a very young age when I reacted strongly to something – not even negatively – just strongly, and people would look at me like they had no idea
We sat across the glass top table in the dining room at my grandmother’s house, which we were renting at the time. Sweet Gra’ma let us paint the whole house whatever color we wanted. And rip up the carpet to paint the slab. I honestly credit a great deal of my decorating sense to the
One weekend on a trip home for my twenty first birthday, Josh took me out on a date to celebrate. He elaborately planned for us to relive our firsts: First date – dinner at Logan’s Steakhouse. I felt like this was a little lame for my twenty first birthday. Then he had procured our church
I’m going to take a brief pause from our story this week to tell you about how Wonder Woman made me cry. Josh and I love super hero movies. We know, we know. The plot is predictable; the stories essentially repeat themselves over and over again; and the scripts are always borderline cheesy. But this is why
Josh and I fell right back into our relationship, but in a new and better way – at first. I started sending him a “Question of the week.” There were things, I realized, that we still didn’t know about each other. Real and important things that we needed to learn and know. So, I started
Three to six months passed. It’s all a little fuzzy because we fizzled more than we split. Josh dated around and scratched whatever wild itch HE had. I dated – I don’t really know if you can call it that. I spent time with other guys. One of them was smart, kind, and quietly funny
