In the spring of 2012, I attended a meeting in which the topic was gratitude. I was not sober at the time, nor engaged in recovery but was just trying to get people off my back. After a few people shared, it was my turn...
What are the facts? When is the last time in the midst of an emotional crisis you stopped to ponder the question, “What are the facts?” I can tell you in all honesty that it has taken years of practice to be able to pause with...
BRC Recovery For many years, I bought into the delusion that if I wanted to stop using, I would. “I just don’t want to,” was my response to family members and loved ones who watched me face external and internal consequences repeatedly. Despite the uncontrollable sadness,...
My struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction My struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction began at the age of twelve years old. I have experienced darkness that neither I nor my family were prepared to encounter. From multiple hospital and psychiatric unit stays, to jails and...
BRC Recovery’s Bringing Real Change To some it may seem that moving back home to the Northeast in the midst of a heroin pandemic was completely irrational, but today I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have been given the rare opportunity to carry the...
Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Appropriately titled The Family Afterward, the ninth chapter in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous begins to answer the first question I am asked by those surrounding their newly sober loved one. Now what? The alcoholic has begun their journey...
Before arriving at BRC Before arriving at BRC I was a broken man. Struggling in life, jobless, penniless, drowning in alcohol, drugs, and misery, a shell of my former self. Not knowing where or how I went wrong in life, I was lost. Fortunately my worried, loving, and...
I must be the Greatest When he beat Liston in 1964 and said "I must be the Greatest", I was 11 and average. From that moment on, I wanted to be great.” -Thomas Henderson, former Dallas Cowboy I had the opportunity last week to attend the West...
BRC Recovery My name is Caroline H., and I am a Recovery Coach with the Women’s Segue Program of BRC Recovery. During my active alcoholism one of the most painful parts of each day for me was waking up. I still very clearly remember the mornings...
My Life Looked Like Four Years Ago I vividly remember what my life looked like four years ago. My family and I were in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for New Year’s Eve of 2012. The hotel we were staying in had a fancy dinner buffet and...
Three years ago Three years ago, as I sat alone paralyzed by fear on yet another seedy motel bathroom floor, I was wondering why I had to experience a level of inexplicable internal pain for what seemed like so many years. The only explanation my besotted...
Your phone rings, you see your caller ID, and your stomach churns. You hear sirens and your blood runs cold. You wonder if your son or daughter, your loved one, is in trouble. Will you have to bail him out? Will you have to visit...