You know that Seinfeld episode where George is waiting for his childhood friend, a recovering alcoholic, to make his amends, but the apology never comes? The episode is called “The Apology,” and it’s based on George’s understanding of one’s 12-step obligation to apologize for harms done to others.

The episode is funnier to me after having walked through Step 9 making amends for wrongs I’ve done to others. I’ll always wonder if someone out there is waiting for an apology from me. The problem for me is that blackouts, a classic occupational hazard of a drunk, mean I don’t remember half the things I might need to apologize for.

I’m bound to righting the wrongs in my life, and that includes the harm I did to myself. Not only did I damage my liver to the brink of irreversibility, but I had to begin my amends with forgiving myself for the emotional self-harm I’d inflicted for decades. I stunted my growth, stole opportunities from myself, and neglected caring for the only body I get in this life. Forgiveness starts within ourselves.

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#LivingAmends #ForgiveYourself #RecoveryProcess #SelfHealing #SobrietyJourney #SelfForgiveness #MakingAmends #EmotionalHealing #PersonalGrowth #TwelveStepProgram

Before sobriety my life was an endless feed of wants and waiting for the next better thing to fill the void. I always focused on what I didn't have yet and spinning stories in self-talk without happy endings. I never viewed ordinary moments with acceptance and gratitude.

When I started my podcast, I wanted my job back. I didn’t want to be in medical retirement. I didn’t want to feel like I’d been forced to leave the role I loved while “everyone else got to stay.” It felt deeply unfair. I didn’t feel like a “survivor”; I felt like a victim. I mourned the loss of my professional relationships and feared I was missing out on everything that had once defined me. Now, I can see how loneliness, the fear of missing out (F.O.M.O.), and a lack of inner peace were all intertwined.

When I neglect my basic needs—those foundational layers of Maslow’s hierarchy—I am stuck in that same cycle of wanting and waiting. My soundness of mind is interrupted when I lack acceptance, knowing that in this moment I have more than enough.

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#RecoveryJourney #SobrietyStory #Gratitude #PeaceOfMind #MaslowHierarchy #LettingGo #Acceptance #MentalHealthAwareness #FOMO #InnerPeace #LifeAfterAddiction #SelfGrowth #RecoveryDailyPodcast #FindingBalance #HealingJourney

If your best friend had walking pneumonia and their worst day was only yesterday, you’d give them as long as they needed to recover, wouldn’t you? Or if a climber broke their arm, they'd get time to heal before scaling mountains again. So why don’t we give ourselves the same grace when we’re broken on the inside where nobody can see?

I’d cling to the side of a cliff myself if it meant my children would be happy, yet I shove myself if I’m not moving fast enough, healing fast enough, in recovery. Alcoholism is not a moral failing, and no matter how hard we shove ourselves, we cannot heal any faster. Alcoholism is a lifelong disease that requires daily spiritual maintenance to not WANT to drink.

I have high expectations of myself, pointing my aspirations higher so my trajectory destines me for happiness. But I haven’t always felt that I deserve happiness. After quite a few 24 hours of hard work in sobriety, I do believe I deserve to be happy. Finally! Now the work is in figuring out what makes me happy. I can only reach my fullest potential if I take care of my basic needs, be good to myself, and read AARP and drink tea if it strikes my fancy. I treat myself with the same kindness and compassion I would show to my best friend. Do you?

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#BeKindToYourself #SelfCareMatters #YouDeserveHappiness #RecoveryJourney #HealingTakesTime #MentalHealthAwareness #SobrietySuccess #DailySpiritualMaintenance #CompassionStartsWithYou #GraceNotPerfection

When I was little, I sucked at Hide and Go Seek. I trusted everybody and didn't know how to lie. As I grew, I learned to blame my brother for everything. And so it began, if something was wrong it was someone else's fault. I began learning how to play games with truth.

They say when you start drinking you stop growing, but I was introduced to a new concept today. When I started drinking, I started unlearning the spirituality of my childhood. I learned how to be cautious of other people. I learned how to say I was fine when I wasn’t. I learned how to lie, and I learned how to hide.

Our experiences in life build our character. The older people get the more character they have, right? Just like anything old that has a lot of character, it must be maintained to higher degree. When I began drinking, I stopped maintaining my character. When I got sober, I needed to do the hard work necessary to chip away at the damage caused by not maintaining the spirituality I had as a little girl.

I unravelled in tears at the end of this episode, and I'm not afraid to share it—that's where deep healing lives in recovery.

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#RecoveryJourney #SpiritualGrowth #SobrietyStory #HealingThroughRecovery #EmotionalHealing #InnerChildWork #SelfAwareness #CharacterBuilding #Authenticity #MentalHealthMatters

After my stroke, it was like I stood with my pants on fire beside a pool of water wondering why my pants were on fire instead of jumping in. I spent two years post-stroke in denial, searching for someone to blame rather than accepting that my life would never be the same, and my career was over. I couldn’t begin again until I accepted this.

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing things repeatedly expecting different results. I beg to differ—this is the definition of denial that leads to insanity if not interrupted. I didn't know that the pain that I was feeling and the problem with my eyes was a chronic disability. I just wanted to be normal, like everyone else. I didn't know that giving in did not mean giving up.

I didn't want to be an alcoholic stroke survivor in recovery. I wasn't willing to give up anything until I had to give up everything to recover. I didn't want to be where I was, but I had to BE anyway. Overtime I’ve begun to want to be where I am. That’s what acceptance has felt like for me.

We grow through our willingness to correct our steps as the path in front of us changes direction.

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#StrokeRecovery #AcceptanceJourney #LifeAfterStroke #RecoveryWisdom #ChronicDisability #SobrietyJourney #EmbraceThePresent #SelfGrowth #MentalHealthAwareness #OvercomingChallenges

The most difficult lesson I learned when I was growing up is that people didn’t care about me as much as I cared about them. I was a very sensitive little girl. I learned how to get hard—build a shell around my gentle emotions. I cried a lot when I was little. It was painful to suture up and protect my emotional wounds. When I found alcohol, stuff didn’t hurt as bad, and I learned to isolate myself away from people who could hurt me. This is how I coped with the world not being how I expected it to be.

When we’re drinking alcoholically, we don’t learn the hard lessons from our teens, 20’s, 30’s, etc. because we’re avoiding that painful learning process. Drinking became less of an option and more of a requirement for me. That is the chronic progressive fatal nature of the disease.

My sobriety program has equipped me with the tools to face this world, rather than hide from it. I've learned that the "next right thing" is often the very thing I’m resisting or don’t want to do. While my podcast may seem like self-help guidance, it’s more of my own journey of self-acceptance.

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#SobrietyJourney #SelfAcceptance #EmotionalHealing #FacingTheWorld #RecoveryCommunity #AlcoholRecovery #ProgressNotPerfection #InnerStrength #OvercomingChallenges #HealingThroughSobriety

I used to believe my anxiety was going to kill me. It was so debilitating that it felt like I would explode. In a moment of misguided confidence, I decided to stop taking my anxiety medication because I thought I was 'better.' But of course, I was 'better' because I was on the medication. Two weeks later, I unraveled. Alone in a silent, empty house during the middle of the workday, my emotions were screaming so loudly inside my head that my anxiety felt like it was tearing through my skin. I finally spun my chair around and shouted, 'I can’t take it anymore!'

Emotions were the gasoline for my anxiety. I used alcohol to shut the engine down. Because of my program I now have the tools to make the engine purr. Emotions are a necessary part of being a human being. They protect us, guide us, and power our aspirations and actions. They teach reasoning and help us grow. When I shut down the engine with alcohol, I stop moving through life and stop growing.

Today I live my way into a new way of thinking, instead of thinking my way into a new way of living. I know now that when I pause and stay in my uncomfortable feelings, they aren’t going to kill me. And my medication works! The pill bottle warning was right — “Don’t drink alcoholic beverages with this medication.” Go figure!

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#AnxietyRecovery #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealthMatters #OvercomingAnxiety #EmotionalHealing #SelfAwareness #LivingSober #MindfulLiving #MentalHealthSupport #RecoveryTools

Ok, I had another epiphany today. When I got sober, I learned how to look at my character defects. Instead of letting them drive my behavior, I needed to shift my mindset to let humility drive my behavior.

I didn’t really know what that meant until I started living daily and noticing the scenarios where I would habitually have a fight or flight response. That response was my armor. I learned stay in the humble discomfort without self-aggrandizement, which was my fight response. What a concept!

The epiphany was that until today I never correlated my character defects to fight or flight. Now that I see that so much more of my drunken behavior makes sense. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my sobriety network for leading me to this epiphany today. That’s why I attend sobriety meetings every single day—I deserve to grow every day. I owe it to myself.

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#SobrietyJourney #Epiphany #PersonalGrowth #CharacterBuilding #Humility #FightOrFlight #SobrietyCommunity #SelfDiscovery #DailyGrowth #OvercomingDefects #SoberLiving