sober lifestyle, Uncategorized

24 Hours

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My 24-Hour Chip. Ain’t She a Beaut?

I hate clichés. Don’t want to write them. Don’t want to say them. Don’t want to be one. I’ve always fancied myself a hard-core champion of originality, to the point that I can’t even bring myself to write “Happy Birthday” on someone’s Facebook page, because what’s the point of saying the same damn thing others have written 100 times already? If you can’t find the inspiration or time to give them something unique, might as well not bother!

Whew. Well, getting the f*ck over myself is a topic for another day.

Today we’re talking about clichés, because dammit, even though it’s difficult for someone like me to accept, clichés are often absolutely true and perfectly meaningful. You want to get all overthink-y and complicate things (and by “you,” I mean “I”) but in reality, a simple statement uttered and written a gazillion times throughout human history can really be the key to a happy life — if you internalize the message and turn it into action.

Take “One Day at a Time,” for example. Continue reading “24 Hours”

sober lifestyle, Uncategorized

The Introduction

I was already sweating, thanks to our ancient air conditioner that decided to break last Saturday — the day I took my last drink — and the home warranty company still giving us the business about fixing it four days later.

I was already on the verge of tears, after walking into a narrow room in a church basement packed with about 25 strangers. It was a bigger crowd than I had been expecting, a crowd that necessitated setting up chairs behind and alongside the main circle. I was an outsider, in every sense of the word. Continue reading “The Introduction”

sober lifestyle, Uncategorized

Perfectionism, Addiction, and Rebuilding Your Life at Age 41

Rock bottom. Has anyone reading this ever hit it and bounced back?

It’s not just a phrase, not a joke to me, and as I sit here, I am not even sure how to define it. I have thought, several times in the past several years of my life, as my lifelong journalism career evaporated, that I’d sunk to the lowest point I’d ever been in my 41-year lifetime. And yet I have continued to sink lower since I left my newspaper job and started working at a digital marketing agency – the only job offered to me in a four-month search last fall.

In all seriousness, I have contemplated ending my life, because by my standards, my life, all my academic and athletic talents, my Northwestern education, my 20 years of reporting on sports, all has amounted to nothing. Right now, I’m an entry-level nobody with everything – advanced age, lack of non-journalism experience, creative skillset – working against me. Continue reading “Perfectionism, Addiction, and Rebuilding Your Life at Age 41”