Are you RAD?

Can you see it? It's funny how you see it in others and miss it in yourself. I was going though old pics from a year ago, exploring the images I took from a solo hike shortly after my last drink, and I came across this image. It seems perfectly juxtaposed against the second image from our recent vacation. Can you see the difference? To think, this was how I was interacting in my world.  Sad eyes. Fake smile.  I didn't fake it till I made it to this point. Honestly, I barely made it. Some days I was 100% certain I wouldn't make it at all. I struggled. I fought against the healing that I needed. Yet here I am. Not every day is a win. But each day is another day. For that I am grateful. This summer has been slow for our business. Not unheard of in our industry, but it is scary as hell when this is your livelihood. The very thing that keeps a roof over your head and food on the table. Instead of seeing it as an industry trend I was internalizing it as personal f

One year. One beautiful, messy, super fucking hard as shit year from hell. One year in which all the crap I ignored for 20 years bubbled up...and I am still wading through it. In the thick, so to speak. I am fortunate, though, I do not wade alone. And even when I do, life rafts are near by, held in place by people who love me. People I didn't know a year ago, and people that are slowly becoming my family. Thankfully, I also married a former life guard, and while he is on his own journey simultaneously, he is a quick learner. I never really had a clue how much connection played a role in addiction. I could tell you a whole lot of random shit about what addiction does to the brain, how it's a fantastic learning model, what it's like to give cocaine to rats...but connection? Funny, that never made it on my radar. It is everything, though. And the addict will tell you straight up how isolating life is when using. I don't need people when I have my vice. But like air, wate