Many of us are stuck in our homes and in our heads a lot more than we are used to these days. It can be a challenging place to be for us alcoholics. I know that as a recovering alcoholic that is doing my best to put my life in order, routine and certainty play a big role in all that. I do better with structure and order more than I ever thought while drinking. In so many ways that is all gone. So many of the important things and people are now absent or relegated to the

There are two quotes that come to mind when I think about the coin that holds optimism on one side and pessimism on the other. The first is from Hunter S. Thompson, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." This epitomizes the motivation of my alcoholism to a tee. Being a man has been painful for most of my life. From the childhood traumas of being raised by an abusive, alcoholic father to my inability and unwillingness to create healthy, lasti

Nicotine is alcohol's weird cousin often showing up to the party unexpectedly. For some of us it is the first thing we think of in the morning. Insidious in its ability to get its hooks in us it is definitely an addiction to be reckoned with in its own right. I once heard nicotine addiction described as a worm burrowing its way through your brain with smoking being the only thing to get it to stop. This is quite accurate. I was an avid smoker for many years. I enjoyed th

When we speak about isolation in alcoholism it is often about physical isolation. Making our worlds smaller and smaller in hopes of being as invisible as possible so as to continue the drinking unabated. This behavior only serves to feed the addiction. For me this was a bottle of vodka under the bed. I liked to hide and drink. Alcoholism brings with it mental and emotional isolation too. We recoil from relationships and hurt people that love us. I am quite familiar wit