I'm getting closer 

to good health,

to financial freedom, 

to all the promises—

but somehow I don't feel 

sane. My addiction

counselor says I'm in 

the maintenance stage 

and doesn't she know 

that maintaining my sobriety 

is scarier than literally anything 

I've ever done and I've done 

some crazy scary shit. I heard 

in a meeting last week 

that in sobriety, we have to find 

a way to feel comfortable 

with the middle ground—

when we are just a regular human 

waiting patiently in line 

at the grocery store 

to buy our 12-seed-bread

and not hiding out 

in the back seat of a stranger's 

car after stealing someone's 

wallet from a party we weren't 

even invited to. It's in the middle 

where we find serenity— not in the ups

or downs of the roller coaster life we knew.

In that middle, that maintenance stage,

it feels like 

I've flatlined.

I can barely remember the rush 

that used to keep me alive. 

I'm getting farther from that 

old version which means 

I'm getting closer to everything else.

Closer to myself 

and can you think of anything 

more terrifying?

Dear heart, 
I’m sorry. And thank you. For everything. For withstanding all of the heartache you’ve endured. For the weight you’ve carried and felt. For the neglect you experienced and withstood it all and stayed kind. You stayed warm when you were thrown nothing but shards of ice. I’ve wanted you to get hard. I’ve wanted to you turn cold. I’ve wanted to build up walls for you and guard you because we can both feel the toll you’ve taken in this life. Yet your strength is profound. You have melted everything I’ve ever started because you’ve known what I could never be sure of. You knew love was the key. The answer. The way. You know that kindness and compassion and love and support and care is what will heal us all, even if we specifically won’t live to see it all the way through. We’ve lived it enough to know it’s true, yet I still doubt it. You never have doubted it. And I appreciate you for staying true whenever I falter. You’ve saved me in all of the senses that exist. I will work with you best I can and we will save whatever we can of this mess called life. 
xo

-Desiree

__________

I Still

I still expected to hurt. I still expected to bleed. As long as I expect to keep breathing, I still expect to keep aching. I’ve ridden most expectations I’ve held of others, after falling accustomed to them falling short. That’s not what hurts me. That’s not what makes it hard to breathe. So much so it's as if every particle of oxygen instantly evaporates from all around me. 
Internally. Externally. Suddenly. Just as any spark and hope and life evaporates right along with it. Poof. Gone. Even then, the will sometimes goes away too and I’m left - not even gasping for air. No longer fighting for a chance. 

It’s a lifeless gaze with an empty stillness and a full-bodied but fragmented frozen nothingness. 

And it all just sits in this momentary wasteland. My pulse becoming the only sensation, movement, and existence that remains. The body’s rendition of the tick tock of a clock, a metaphorical timer with it’s own innate pressure and pace.
Counting itself down to breaking point. Pushing until my body kicks back in, as I learned I could expect it to. But it’s still subtle. Almost unnoticeable. 

Giving only the bare minimum because it’s already been given away and taken from. 

I’ve done so much that I can’t expect myself to be able to do it all. I’ve resuscitated so many others not so that I could expect it back. 
I can’t expect perfection. I can’t expect reciprocation. I still can't even expect respect. 

Realistically, I can’t expect much. So I still expect to hurt. 

Will you listen to me? I’m going to propose that question again. Will you listen to me? What more do I have to do? What more do I need to prove? Why can’t it be enough? Why can’t I be heard? Is it about not understanding? Is it about my tone or word choice or timing? 

You won’t listen to me so maybe if I just keep asking questions, I’ll eventually get enough answers to be able to communicate your way, and maybe, just maybe – we might be able to get somewhere with all of this. It’s getting old staying stuck here in all of this. I’m getting tired of working so hard for all of this when you don’t at all. 

Why did I want you to listen to me so badly? Not a single idea anymore, so instead, I will listen to myself. I will listen to my will to leave this behind. 

Bess and Gary are pleased and proud to announce that they and Writers for Recovery have been honored with the 2023 Jack Barry Award! The award is given at Vermont’s statewide Recovery Day each year by Recovery Vermont for excellence in recovery communication and advocacy, And the fact that the reward was presented by our friend Ed Baker, an amazing communicator and advocate (and a former winner of the Jack Barry Award) made our day doubly thrilling. Thanks so much to Recovery Vermont and everyone who has made WFR possible, including everyone who’s ever joined a group, shared a story, or support WFR through their donations. THANK YOU!!

It is with great sadness that I learned about the passing of longtime friend of WFR Pat Murray. If I remember right, Pat and her lovely wife Jen showed up at the very first WFR session at the Turning Point Recovery Center. Like everyone else, Pat was new to this writing process. But like I suspect she did throughout her life, she jumped in with enthusiasm, good humor, and kindness.

From that first session, Pat gave generously with her time, her comments on other people’s work, and by sharing her story for the benefit of others working their recoveries. Like many in recovery, she had a hard story to tell, but she also wrote lovingly about her childhood, her life with Jen, and the crazy world we all live in. She shared her work in public readings, and proved every bit as charming and good-natured onstage as she was off. And throughout her long illness, she exuded the positive outlook and the care for others that she was known for.

Pat had many friends in the recovery community, who I’m sure will miss her greatly. Bess, Deb, and I are thinking fondly of Pat, and sending our love to Jen in this hard time. Pat, thanks for making our lives better.

Here’s Pat’s “I Am From” poem, which I have shared at countless opening workshops sessions. People always enjoy it, and I hope you will, too.

I Am From

by Pat Murray

I am from Italian streets, baked bread with a hard crust and a soft center.


I am from a breezy shore, sand and sun, endless days and nights of summer. 

I am from a thousand heartaches and a hundred tears, searching for a place called home.


I am from laughter and joy and sorrow and pain and back again.


I am from a town called old fashioned and a city called wild.


I am from a long lost time forgotten in memory,

too hard to remember, too painful to forget.

Alco-logic … how my view of the world get skewed when I’m under the influence and remains into sobriety. If nothing else, jail is teaching me patience to stay present in the moment, which can be very challenging in this particular jail with three to a cell and thirty to a unit. But with the clarity of sobriety, I realize I’m very negative & angry mostly with myself and I take it out on the people closest to me. I’m furious my mom won’t bail me out. I’m furious with myself for creating such a legal mess through the use/abuse of drugs and alcohol, and yet I still want to use and think about it all the time. How could any reasonable person think that using could be a good idea in light of the consequences of what happens? And I know I would probably go use today if I got out. How fucked is that?

I’ve been thinking about when I’ll be getting out of this facility and going back home to my family. These last 2 months have been the longest 2 months of my life and I cannot wait for it to come to an end. This is also the longest time I’ve been incarcerated at a time. It feels like a nightmare that won’t come to an end. Learning how to survive in here has been the strangest thing I have had to learn. Surviving in a facility compared to surviving at home is completely fucked up and definitely different than anything I’ve had to learn as an adult.

Here and now

Free for all

Let’s come together

Join in bliss

Dessert first questions last

Why ask what kind of mask

Task in hand creating plans

We will only succeed in bringing

Ears ringing every time

Is it a sign or a trick

Which one do I stick with

Ideas short and long

It’s a power and a shower

Spittin’ facts

It’s dynamite watch me

Xplode

Well to start off, my life in jail sucks.

Nobody helping me on the outside

Makes matters so much harder

To deal with.

When I start thinking the worst in life,

I go to my kids

For support.

The always help me get through the

Tough times.

Life is an abstraction of what you

Want it to be

And if you do good, you’ll be good and the latter.

What I been thinking about is also the

Fact of the matter that

I got myself into this mess in the

First place

And you know what?

That really pisses me off.

The world is all that you make of it.

My eyes see barbed wire

But my brain sees home

That is wrong on so many levels

That is when I knew I needed

To change

I am from the wood and the water, the wind and the stars.

I am from the dim lights and the cracking balls on the slate table.

I am from the cat and mouse as playful as they may be.

I am from who’s who and invitations for dinner.

I am from broken hearts and lustful worlds.

The warnings of wrongs and the prick of a needle.

I am from family and friends and the many road signs that pass me by.

I am from the mysteries either underground or in the sky.

I am from my Mom and Dad who always helped me get by.

I am from the collection of thoughts and ideas I use to form the personality I have

That ultimately I use to explore who I am.

I from pain, I am from loss, but it created relief it created strength albeit going back and forth like yin to my yang, like night and day!

I hate reliving and bathing in the pain but seem to love it all the same. Why would I continue to allow myself to live in a world full of pain and loss? Why do I feel comfort in a place that offers none of it? It’s a trap it’s a trap that continues to lure me in. The strength my pain and loss has created is immense but still not strong enough to keep me from walking back to the other side. One day it will one day I will become strong enough to challenge my pain and loss head on and not falter.

Relief will come and flood me with strength. I want it so bad I can taste it. Yet I know deep down today is not that day. I need to grow I need to forget, to forgive, I need to let myself want to live again. I will live again.

I am from a small town where everybody knows everybody. I am from a small town surrounded by woods. I am from a loving family who helps everyone no matter what. I am currently battling drugs additions that could kill me. I am in NECC cuz of the mistakes I’ve made in the past. I have a beautiful fiancé who lives the sober life and wants me to be sober. I am thankful for my family and fiancé. If it weren’t for them I’d be dead on the side of the road from overdosing.

I couldn’t hide it anymore. I masked up for so long. I painted on makeup. I stitched a smile onto my face so that I wouldn’t bring anyone down if they saw the tears welling in my eyes. I pushed through all of my feelings and poured myself into school and work for as long as I’ve known. I stayed busy so that I couldn’t feel. So that I didn’t have any time to sit in silence and let the reality set in. To let the overwhelm take over and take me under. To chug another coffee to hide my exhaustion from decades of playing this game. Of fighting these battles. Of surviving but not living. I was tired, and not in the way a good night’s sleep could fix. Or that a vacation could even rebound me. I was drained from all of the angles, and I just couldn’t hide it anymore.

It was that red and black flannel

Coat he wore

No fashion statement - just warmth.

It was the uniform of every daily chore

Garden variety wool

A nylon liner

No more.

It was that old coat

A little worn but never rent

Grimy ‘round the collar.

It was his old coat

Carrying his particular scent.

It was as if he still wore it

Even after he went.

“You need to go on a stress leave.” Those were the words that started it all. Wanting to die wasn’t new but someone finally acknowledging that I’m at breaking point was. That another could see that relief was necessary for me was unique and novel. Simultaneously a sigh of relief and the gasp in response – this could not be possible. I couldn’t possibly take a break, every other attempt made it clear this couldn’t be a realistic option. Yet now the professionals were saying it was the only option or I wouldn’t make it through the day. Asking so many questions as I always do, thinking that I need to be fully prepared of what my next steps would be and the next intention on getting back as quick as possible since I couldn’t get out of this. These instructions merely got me through the day, but as we are now a year passed – I repetitively had no idea what was coming my way. Clarification was continuously requested along the way but led astray was my reality. The complications of systems and policies, that drag out the process instead of extending a hand up and out of the darkness. A series of one step forward, ten steps back – requiring one to get sicker before we will help. I understand why it’s called a stress leave as my absence has only brought more tension and pressure. There’s no way to go back or return, so I continue trying to move forward without a clue where I’m headed.

We had a long talk. There were many suggestions about how one may buy icecream for your inner child. How not to be defined by a lover or a disability or an excuse. It may be time to learn how to breathe again, and move, and enjoy. It may be time to claim myself or get a job, or head for the hills. I already quit my job, paid my rent, and someone is watching the dog. The sky is indeterminate grey. Like a photosynthesizing protist, I need both the dark and the light, and the grey feels like a roof that is caving in on its own weight. I have never experienced seasonal affective disorder in Summer. This is where the literatures of childhood come from, a grey sky mirthless, leaden, and unending. This is where the hero’s journey’s setting out point may be. I have written to one of the inquiries. I have started another. I had all day, and my skin was cold. Zanner asked if I had considered putting on pants. I like to complain of the cold. I spent the whole day my host was at work being cold, and letting the intrusive thoughts gurgle like the lurgy. Pants. Another sweater. Existential reality and a different vantage point. Yeah, I am considering it.

Please join us in Montpelier on Sunday, July 24 for a celebration of motherhood, music, and healing. Scrag Mountain Music will perform songs written by new and expecting mothers as part of the Lullaby Project!

It didn't seem realistic to me. I'm really struggling today. every day if I'm honest. I feel like crying. I was so determined to keep sober. but Friday tequila was on sale at the grocery store so I picked it up. and a bottle of rum. I drank the tequila on Friday when I cooked the lasagna for Saturday. Sunday I drank the rum. yesterday I walked to the corner shop and got a litre of vodka. I don't enjoy drinking anymore. I wake up in the morning feeling like shit. but wanting more alcohol. I can't seem to string weeks together to get a month of sobriety. I need help. but I don't know where to go. I feel like I'm letting my kids down, my sponsor down, my friend. I miss my kids so much and I want them back.

Getting sober in San Francisco was weird. So much of my geography of the city was built around places I drank–even neutral zones like parks and a bus line here or there were colored by memories (or lack thereof) of bottles and cans in brown paper bags…

When I started AA it was like wearing a new pair of glasses. Now I was going to meetings in places where my previous experiences were blurry memories, but trying to reorient my brain to see them differently. There were whole new networks of people where the boozy friends once were. I had to learn how to interact with humans sober–how does one exactly start a conversation? How do you show you're interested in what a person is saying? What do people, um, do when they aren't drinking? 

On top of that I had to interact with my old friends in new ways. Maybe go over to my friend's house who just had a baby and give the baby a bath, maybe show up for a (sober) writing group. There was a lot more to life than sitting around at a bar refusing alcohol while everyone else drank.

I still feel like a stranger to my old self in some ways, still learning to walk steadily in my new land. Maybe it will always be like this, but I hope it won't.