Category: source

Pressure to Lose Weight Derailed Lindsey Vonn’s Skiing Career

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Back Vonn Top – 

November 9, 2020 – Lindsey Vonn is getting real about her past struggles with self-esteem. In a virtual interview with Access Hollywood’s Kit Hoover, the retired Olympic champion opened up about the pressure she felt to lose weight at the height of her skiing career. She explained, “I had a lot of anxiety and body image issues when I came on the red carpet because I was, you know, 30, 40, 50 pounds heavier than everyone that I was standing next to … There were definitely moments where I sacrificed a bit of my skiing career, especially after the Olympics. I lost weight because I felt like I needed to fit in and that cost me World Cup wins, that cost me an overall title. The former pro athlete also dished on her new canine-and-human competition series “The Pack” premiering Nov. 20 on Amazon Prime Video.

more@Yahoo

The post Pressure to Lose Weight Derailed Lindsey Vonn’s Skiing Career appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers arrested after crashing his car in Malibu

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Portrait of an Alcoholic – 

Nov. 10, 2020 – The actor, 43 – whose battle with alcoholism has been well documented over the years – is believed to have had a ‘solo and minor’ car accident at around 5pm on Sunday. Meyers also publicly apologised to his fans in 2015 for a ‘minor relapse’ after pictures surfaced of him on a street drinking straight from a bottle of vodka. 

In July 2018 the star vowed to stay sober after being detained following a drunken row with his wife Mara Lane onboard a plane.   

DailyMail.com exclusively reported the Bend It Like Beckham star screamed ‘f*** you, I’m going to divorce you’ at his wife when she asked him to stop smoking his e-cigarette on a plane, a passenger revealed, before the actor was detained by police at LAX.

The Irish actor was on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Los Angeles with his wife Mara and their then one-year-old son Wolf when he allegedly got into a drunken fight with her. 

more@DailyMail

The post Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers arrested after crashing his car in Malibu appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Lucille Ball Was a ‘Crucial Part in My Recovery’ From Drug Addiction

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – The pressure was on –  

Nov. 10, 2020 – Actor Keith Thibodeaux landed the role of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s son Little Ricky in 1955. With the birth of the most famous sitcom couple’s child being in the national spotlight, Desi Jr. was thrown off balance seeing his parents call another boy their son. “I can still remember watching the show when I was about three and wondering who was the baby with Mommy and Daddy,” Desi Jr. told Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert in their book Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. “When my parents said it was me, I was confused, because I knew it wasn’t.” The unique dynamic caused somewhat of an identity crisis for Desi Jr., who felt he had to constantly compete with the I Love Lucy character.

more@CheatSheet

The post Lucille Ball Was a ‘Crucial Part in My Recovery’ From Drug Addiction appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Can AA Please Evolve?

By Dave W

One of the things I admire the most about the simplicity of the way AA meetings are structured and conducted is the level playing field that is created for the typical one-hour duration of the gathering. No one is above anyone else. Even the chairperson, whose primary responsibility is to keep the meeting on course and at least reasonably timed, is asked to identify as an alcoholic and share a portion of their story at the beginning of the meeting.

We are a flawed, imperfect and broken peer support group in various stages of recovery. In meetings it’s common to feel a sense of admiration and compassion at the candor and courage people show when telling their stories, revealing details of past mistakes and blunders that would get you kicked out of a lot of social circles, job opportunities, and some families if the details were repeated outside our meeting rooms.

Despite AA’s simplistic structure, when change does happen it is excruciatingly slow. The plodding pace is understandable when one is dealing with a decentralized structure where autonomy flows from the bottom upwards. Change will be gradual, cautious and measured. Unfortunately, the process is handicapped further by a reluctance to understand that times change, societal norms evolve, and new knowledge about alcoholism and addiction continues to become available.

If I were to play word association, and someone said “AA” to me, my first response might be “dated”. When I attend meetings I often feel as if I have fallen into a time machine and am back in another era. Members display AA’s flagship piece of literature, an eighty-year-old book written in an archaic style and based on an understanding of alcoholism that was prevalent in the 1930s. I personally cringe at the thought of telling a newcomer that there is nothing new under the sun about alcoholism and addiction. It was all known in the 1930s. The book dismisses anyone who is an atheist or agnostic and makes it clear to them that if you do not get god you will not get sober. The sexism in the book is embarrassing and seems to imply that female alcoholics are as rare as hen’s teeth. There does not seem to be much appetite to archive the original text and present a more timely and relevant volume.

In meetings one of the first things a newcomer may notice is an apron proudly displayed across the table where the chair and speaker sit, giving the founding date of the group. Black and white pictures of Bill and Bob often adorn the walls. Slogans are displayed prominently, frequently in a font that reminds one of biblical passages. I am grateful AA has survived the decades to be here for me, but I don’t understand why there’s such an obsession with the past. I worry about the disconnect many newcomers must feel from a presentation from a different era.

In gatherings there are times when AA takes on a cult like behavior. At the Ontario Regional Conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Toronto last year, I sat in the auditorium with two fellow secular AA members awaiting the opening speaker. I witnessed what I thought at the time and still do a bizarre and creepy spectacle, the conference participants walking to the stage while almost everyone in the audience rising to their feet and clapping in unison to a precise rhythmic cadence. As I remained sitting with my two non-participating friends, I wondered how many people who joined in the ritual were thinking this is stupid, I feel awkward, why am I doing this but were too intimidated to remain seated. It did not look like an effort to show appreciation to the participants, it came off as a robotic and an extremely uncomfortable ritual practice. The act may have looked harmless, but it appeared as an intent to control people’s behavior. Synchronized clapping has nothing to do with getting or remaining sober, but if you can get people to engage in mindless rituals it’s easier to get them to conform to the dogma and rigidity that exists in some meetings and the literature.

Ritualism and repetition find their ways into AA in a multitude of behaviors and beliefs. A cornerstone of many meetings is an obsession with readings that are narrow and dated. It is amazing that there is any time left for people to share their personal stories and issues given the plethora of readings done at some meetings and other events. At any given gathering a combination of The Steps, The Traditions (don’t forget to chant “principles before personalities”), The Promises, The Concepts, How it Works, Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, The Spiritual Experience, The Serenity Prayer, and often of course, everyone’s favorite, the Lord’s Prayer are trotted out.

And if the readings are not sufficient to fill an hour, we have slogans aplenty. Think, Think, Think. You Are Not Alone. Let Go and Let God. First Things First. But for the Grace of God. Stick With the Winners…. On and on and on.

This obsession with repetitious readings and slogans makes it difficult for meetings to unfold organically and allow attendees to speak freely on present moment situations. Spontaneity is lost and people are taught to put their current problems on the back burner and talk about the chosen reading instead. There seems to be a rule in some meetings that if your present situation does not dovetail with the chosen topic at hand, you better not speak. It is also an effective way to prevent dreaded outside issues being discussed. We can’t have you talking about non-alcohol related addictions; this is AA. Take your childhood trauma, your PTSD, your OCD, your other sundry mental health issues out of the rooms. Whether these problems contribute to your drinking or not, if it is not covered in the Big Book, we do not want to hear it.

One of the unfortunate legacies of AA has been the white male heterosexual Christian dominance of the fellowship. Yes, it is changing. There are now meetings for women, for LGBTQ individuals, for agnostics and atheists, for people for whom language is a barrier. Despite this evolution, narrowness and bigotry still occur. In recent issues of our local Intergroup’s newsletter a picture appears on the last page announcing members sober milestones. It looks like a sketch from the early days of AA. Every person in it looks to be either a middle age or old white man. No women. No minorities. Given what has happened in recent months and years with the emergence of the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, the picture is horribly tone deaf in a newsletter in 2020. We are not in violation of tradition 10 by having an opinion on outside issues if we are simply showing respect for and awareness of diversity.

If there is a silver lining for the current pandemic, it has been the opportunity to sit in on-line meetings and hear people from all over North America and other parts of the world share their experiences in traditional AA. It has been a revelation to hear people’s gratitude in finding our growing secular groups and talk openly about the struggle of fitting into meetings where their core beliefs and values don’t mesh with the traditional god centric literature. It becomes clear quickly when hearing these stories that there is no one size fits everyone approach to recovery and it’s ok to go off the common path of getting a sponsor and working the traditional version of the steps as soon as you walk in the door.

I have enormous gratitude for the secular meetings I found in Toronto in May of 2018 when my drinking was out of control. Even though I was not close to dying, I believe these meetings and the people I met in them have prolonged my life. Yes, these meetings too have readings. Yes, they have some ritual practices. I am totally at home with chanting “Hi, so and so” when a fellow member identifies. At one meeting, The Serenity Prayer, minus the G word, is recited in unison. The responsibility declaration is read routinely at the close. None the less, the meat of these gatherings is largely what participants decide it is. People are free to talk on what they need to at any given point. I have yet to be censored for any of my words even though I frequently speak of personal issues where the linear path back to my drinking may not always be clear. It is quite the contrast to what I feel in many traditional meetings where my mind seems to dwell more on whether what I want to share is acceptable or not. I believe traditional AA could benefit greatly from taking the handcuffs off. AA is not going to die if non-conference approved readings are done in a meeting, or an “outside issue” is discussed or if, God forbid, we actually rewrite the Big Book to reflect current times. It may die however if fear of change continues to weigh the fellowship down in a past that still looks too much like the 1930s.

David is a sixty two year-old agnostic alcoholic whose drinking career began late in life after growing up with an alcoholic father. After twelve years of daily drinking, he came to believe that a substance greater than himself trapped him in the same addictive cycle that had trapped various members of his family on both sides. Desperate for outside help, he found secular AA on-line in 2018 and was able to avoid the conflict with religion and a mandatory belief in god that traditional AA insists on imposing on members. His home group is Beyond Belief Toronto and he will be two years sober in December 2020.

 

The post Can AA Please Evolve? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Covid-19 Vaccine May Not Be Available Before December

American pharmaceutical company Pfizer released astonishingly positive data regarding its covid-19 vaccine on Monday and by the end of November, the company hopes to apply for approval from regulatory authorities. However, experts warn that it will take some time maybe a month before the vaccine can be approved.

Health experts believe that the people of the United States should not hope for Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine to be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before the 2nd half of December. The reason is that the first company that may get its vaccine over the line, Pfizer, may not be able to do it before the next week. Moreover, the FDA would require weeks to review and authorize the vaccine candidate.

Also Read: State Leaders Urge Residents to Stay at Home as Coronavirus Hospitalizations in the US Increase

Dr. Larry Corey, who is at the front of the covid-19 vaccine trials network in the US, believes that the FDA will take around 10 days to review clinical trial data of Pfizer. The agency will also be required to review the manufacturing data of Pfizer to make sure that the facilities are up to the standard where the vaccine is being made.

Corey said that he is not sure how long will the review take but thinks that it could be around two weeks which according to him is a reasonable time period for such a review. Moreover, the FDA has decided to seek input from the advisory group named Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). However, the FDA has to schedule any meeting with the VRBPAC 15 days in advance publicly, which can also slow things down a little.

Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Dr. Paul Offit agrees with the December deadline and said that the FDA also has to seek the advice of the VRBPAC which would presumably be scheduled sometime in December.

Moreover, Pfizer’s report on Monday about its covid-19 vaccine being 90% effective was based on preliminary data. The FDA won’t grant an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) based on that information. According to the FDA rules, a company can apply for EUA only after waiting for two weeks of giving a second dose of its vaccine to about half of the volunteers. Moreover, the doctors leading the clinical trials will need nearly 100 more proven cases of the coronavirus to show that the vaccine works.

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said that Pfizer is about a week or more from reaching that. Moreover, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services Alex Azar thinks that it will take the company a couple of weeks to get the vaccine authorized from the FDA.

Head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research of FDA Dr. Peter Marks said that the FDA will not cut corners and will move swiftly in its processes. Dr. Marks who also leads vaccine decision-making for FDA added that the agency will not grant full approval rather it will use its EUA process.

Although the federal government has not given any directions regarding who will get vaccinated first, however, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have given recommendations that the most vulnerable people and frontline and emergency workers should be first vaccinated.

The post Covid-19 Vaccine May Not Be Available Before December appeared first on Spark Health MD.

Mike Tyson: I put baby urine in a fake penis to pass drug tests

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Can’t Touch This –  

November 10, 2020 – The boxing legend, 54, explained on his “Hotboxin’ ” podcast this week how he faked his way through drug tests — and his strategy is a pissah.

“It was awesome, man,” Tyson said of using a prosthetic penis equipped with a pee bag to pass urine assessments. “I put my baby’s urine in it.”

Tyson chose to fill his device — called a Whizzinator— with his child’s urine instead of his wife’s for fear hers would show up pregnant, he told UFC vice president of athletic health and performance Jeff Novitzky.

“One time I was using my wife’s [urine], and my wife was like, ‘Baby, you better not hope that it comes back pregnant or something.’ And I said, ‘Nah, so we ain’t gonna use you any more, we’re gonna use the kid,’” he said. “I got scared that the piss might come back pregnant.”  Other athletes have not been so smart.

“A male provided a urine sample, and it came back and they said ‘Sir, you’re pregnant. Either you’re pregnant or this is somebody else’s urine!’ ” added Novitzky of one such unrelieved wazz-ock.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Tyson, who has been open over the years about his drug use.  The urine tests Tyson was being subjected to required not only a sample but that he perform the deed in front of a tester — meaning he needed to make sure his Whizzinator was a convincing body double for his actual member.

“Did you have the right color Whizzinator?” asked Novitzky. “Cause it was that NFL guy — black dude that had a white one.”

more@NYPost

The post Mike Tyson: I put baby urine in a fake penis to pass drug tests appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Mike Tyson: I put baby urine in a fake schlong to pass drug tests

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Can’t Touch This –  

November 10, 2020 – The boxing legend, 54, explained on his “Hotboxin’ ” podcast this week how he faked his way through drug tests — and his strategy is a pissah.

“It was awesome, man,” Tyson said of using a prosthetic penis equipped with a pee bag to pass urine assessments. “I put my baby’s urine in it.”

Tyson chose to fill his device — called a Whizzinator— with his child’s urine instead of his wife’s for fear hers would show up pregnant, he told UFC vice president of athletic health and performance Jeff Novitzky.

“One time I was using my wife’s [urine], and my wife was like, ‘Baby, you better not hope that it comes back pregnant or something.’ And I said, ‘Nah, so we ain’t gonna use you any more, we’re gonna use the kid,’” he said. “I got scared that the piss might come back pregnant.”  Other athletes have not been so smart.

“A male provided a urine sample, and it came back and they said ‘Sir, you’re pregnant. Either you’re pregnant or this is somebody else’s urine!’ ” added Novitzky of one such unrelieved wazz-ock.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Tyson, who has been open over the years about his drug use.  The urine tests Tyson was being subjected to required not only a sample but that he perform the deed in front of a tester — meaning he needed to make sure his Whizzinator was a convincing body double for his actual member.

“Did you have the right color Whizzinator?” asked Novitzky. “Cause it was that NFL guy — black dude that had a white one.”

more@NYPost

The post Mike Tyson: I put baby urine in a fake schlong to pass drug tests appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

State Leaders urge residents to stay at home as Coronavirus Hospitalizations in the US increase rapidly

Coronavirus hospitalizations in the US are skyrocketing as on Tuesday the number of people admitted to the hospitals due to the virus reached an all-time high of 60,000 hospitalizations in a day. Due to this situation, many state leaders around the country are asking the residents to stay at home, so that the spread of virus in the country can be controlled.

According to the Covid Tracking Project, the number of people hospitalized due to covid19 on Tuesday was 61,694. That number exceeds the previous record of coronavirus hospitalizations in the US by 2,024 achieved on the 15th of April, which was the peak of the pandemic. The Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak is urging the people to be committed to a plan which he calls ‘Stay at Home 2.0’ for the next two weeks so that the current trends in the country can be reversed significantly.

Also Read: Covid-19 cases in the US surpass 10 million

The increasing number of coronavirus hospitalizations in the US is troubling because an increase in hospitalizations also results in an increase in deaths. Last week for five consecutive days more than 1000 people in the US died due to the virus, the first time it has happened in three months. More than 1300 people died due to the virus on Tuesday. As of now, the virus has claimed 239,000 lives since its start in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins. Moreover, the country currently averages around 1,661 new hospitalizations in a day, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Governor Sisolak believes that people need to go back to the basics of maintaining social distancing and wearing face masks. He also encouraged the businesses to go back to telecommuting as much as possible and also asked the residents to avoid inviting groups of people for parties, dinners, and other get-togethers.

Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers announced on Tuesday that he has signed a new order urging the people to stay at home and save lives. He said that for now, it’s not safe to go out or to invite others. He requested the people to cancel dinner parties, playdates, happy hours, and sleepovers at their homes and if any relative or friend invites over, offer them to hang out virtually.

The new warnings and steps are announced at a difficult time for the US as the country has reported more than 100,000 new cases for a day for eight days in a row on Tuesday. Public health officials have given a warning to the people of America that if they don’t follow safety measures of social distancing and wearing face masks then the situation will get a lot worse when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris join the office.

An emergency physician at Brown University Dr. Megan Ranney said on Sunday that by the time that Biden administration joins the office, the virus will have spread uncontrollably in the communities across the US. She added that the US is now heading to the worst of the pandemic and the situation could be a lot similar to ‘pouring gasoline on the fire’.

The post State Leaders urge residents to stay at home as Coronavirus Hospitalizations in the US increase rapidly appeared first on Spark Health MD.

Atheist in a Foxhole

Chapter 5:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Russ H.

On a sunny Saturday morning at the end of July, 1995, I pulled into the cul-de-sac where I lived with my wife of 19 years and our two teenage children. My sister’s van was parked in the driveway. A police squad car occupied the spot in front of our house forcing me to park across the street. I don’t recall how long I had been gone. It might have been a few hours or a few days. As I walked across the front yard I noticed that the van in the driveway was full of stuff – our stuff – and I wondered “are we going somewhere?” As I walked in the front door I was greeted by a police officer who asked me my name. The pivotal event that defines the end of the beginning of my AA story was about to unfold.

After identifying myself to him, the policeman told me that my wife and my sister were packing some things and would then be leaving with the children. He explained that he was there to make sure I didn’t do anything to make this process any more difficult for them than it already was. I was instructed to take a seat in the nearest chair and stay there until my family was gone. The 28 years leading up to this moment are littered with countless incidents of blackout drinking and outrageous behavior – usually accompanied by negative consequences. The common thread through all of those years, the singular fact that drove me to my bottom, can be summed up neatly: having that police officer there that morning was a very good idea.

They left. I had no idea where they had gone. To reach my children I had to call my sister. She would then call them. If they felt like talking they would call me. Talking to my wife was not an option. I spent the rest of that weekend in miserable solitude mulling over a brand new realization. The way I was leading my life simply was not working. As so often mysteriously happens to alcoholics approaching their bottoms, I had acquired a big book and a schedule of AA meetings in my area. I had looked at them very briefly – just long enough to know that I was not interested in what they had to offer. Now, suddenly, there was a glimmer of interest in the meeting schedule. On Monday morning I called in sick and went down to a noon meeting at the nearest AA meeting place.

The big book tells us that “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps”. The unsteady steps I took as I walked into that meeting were the first evidence of my readiness to go to any length. I had no expectations. I simply didn’t know what else to do. I wound up going to three meetings that day.

I met people who said they were alcoholics and drug addicts. They told their stories and shared openly about what their lives had been like and what they were like now. I saw in them what it looks like when people like me stop drinking and using. I learned from them what it is like to speak frankly and without embarrassment about who we really are, what we have really done, how we really feel.

A doctoral dissertation called “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” was recently submitted and it is based entirely on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

They allowed me to talk. They listened as I revealed anger, fear and shame and they were neither shocked nor disapproving. It dawned on me that I desperately needed to be with them. They were eager for me to join them. They didn’t require anything from me other than my own willingness to belong. The friendship and love from those people, and others in the years that have followed, changed my life.

At some point that day I realized that I wanted what those people had – to be a clean and sober person – more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. I had come to believe – not in God or spirituality – but simply that it really was possible for me to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction.

I got home late that evening. The hope and optimism I had felt while in the company of my new-found sober friends gave way to loneliness and desperation. Tears became weeping which became the convulsive sort of sobbing that makes it difficult to breathe and nearly impossible to speak. I found myself crying out “God help me. I don’t know what to do. Show me what to do.” Surprising words, perhaps, for an atheist to utter but that is what happened. They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I was in a metaphoric foxhole that evening. Apparently, not only are atheists sometimes in foxholes but some of us also sometimes pray.

The next morning I went in to work. I stopped first to speak to my boss. I told him that I was an alcoholic and drug addict. He was used to seeing me work long hours. I said I would now only be able to give him 40 hours per week – that my recovery had become my first priority. I thought there was a good chance I might be fired. Instead he looked at me and said “You look like a man who has had the weight of the world lifted from your shoulders. You have been a valuable asset here and we will stand by you now.”

Next I visited his boss, a woman named Esther. I started to tell her the same story but I had hardly begun before she stopped me and said “Well, you probably should try to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. See if you can find a sponsor. I will try to get the company to cover the cost of a 30 day rehab. If they will you should do that.” She sounded to me like she might be a recovered alcoholic herself although I learned later that day she was not. I was overcome with gratitude for the unconditional support I was receiving and told Esther I could hardly believe how wonderfully people were treating me that morning. She just shook her head and said “You expect too little from people”. How true I now realize that was.

I left her office and went to my own. As I sat there, trying to maintain composure, my boss walked in and put a key to his house down on my desk. He said “Your wife and kids need your house more than you do. Come stay with me until you get back on your feet”. I spent that night and the next several weeks accepting his generous offer. A few minutes later a coworker dropped by. News travels fast in a workplace where most people are housed in cubicles. She said she’d heard what was up and asked “So, you’re a 12-Stepper?” Of course, I really wasn’t but said I was. She smiled and said “Me too. Mine is a different ‘-A’ but we use the same 12 Steps.” Until then she had been a casual friend. That day she became a trusted confidant.

I left the office in time to make the 5:30 meeting near my home. When I arrived a man was waiting for me at the entrance to the room. He introduced himself as Scott, Esther’s son. Scott was an alcoholic and addict who’s “other” drug of choice was the same as mine. He had been clean and sober for 10 years and lived about six blocks down the road from me. Within a couple of weeks he became my first sponsor.

When I tell this story at AA meetings it is not uncommon for people to come up to me and say. “You’re an atheist? How is that possible? You prayed for guidance and the very next day you did things you formerly would not have considered doing. Your prayer was answered. It may not have been a burning bush but what happened to you was surely a miracle.” I’m inclined to agree that what happened feels miraculous. However, I simply do not believe in supernatural phenomena. When I hit my thumb with a hammer I am likely to cry out, “God damn it!” Driven to hopeless despair that evening I cried out “God help me!” The prayer was genuine but it was not a declaration of faith.

That marriage that seemed hopelessly doomed in July was reunited shortly before Christmas after a five month separation. I ecstatically shared my new and improved AA story which now featured restored domestic harmony and renewed family bonds. Then one day in early 2000 I returned from a two week business trip to learn that my wife had fallen in love with a friend of ours. For the first time as a sober man I was confronted with a devastating personal setback. It was not an easy time. I did not handle it gracefully. But I did share the experience with my sober friends. I let them see me suffer. Emotional pain has a tendency to rapidly morph into anger for me – even today – and my friends endured my anger too. As before, they did not turn away or express disapproval. I did not drink or use. Eventually the pain subsided. Life became, at first, tolerable then ultimately enjoyable once again.

I stayed clean and sober on the strength of the fellowship alone for over two years before I approached the 12 Steps with any real interest. It was then that I met the man who became my second AA sponsor. I have now known him for nearly 18 years. Although he will always be my sponsor, I no longer see him as a mentor. He is my trusted friend and one of the men in my life whom I love and know that I am loved by. He shared with me a point of view about life and recovery and AA that was, in large part, passed on to him by his sponsor. It is a point of view that resonates deeply with me and I pass it along to other men if they express an interest. It is not based on the 12 Steps as a recipe or formula for achieving sobriety.

The 12 Steps embody principles of a self-examined life that are neither unique nor new. They direct us to acknowledge who and what we are, to look for and rely upon help from outside ourselves, to examine past actions and motives, to understand that what we say and do may have greater or lesser merit, to seek to speak and act in ways that have greatest merit, to acknowledge our shortcomings, to make retribution for harm done to others whenever possible and to open our minds and hearts to great things we have not yet considered or felt. To adopt these goals (whether or not we try to achieve them specifically as prescribed in the 12 AA Steps) is a noble calling.

The notion that we should seek to speak and act in ways that have greatest merit implies that there is, in this world, an inherent morality. I believe this to be the case. Many AA members speak of seeking to do God’s will. They are using different language based on a different world view but, it seems to me, they are saying essentially the same thing that I am saying. I have heard it said that there really is no “them” in AA. There is just “us.” This applies to the whole world not just to AA.

What it’s like now is a moving target. The ups and downs of being human have not been supplanted by some persistent state of happy and joyous freedom.

Sustaining long term sobriety is inevitably accompanied by growing older. Both processes seem, generally, to smooth rough edges and round off sharp corners. The emotional extremes of my drinking and using days have given way to the much less dramatic emotional extremes of life as a sober and recently retired person. More and more the virtues of “easy does it” and “live and let live” seem to be driving my daily existence.

Sometimes I wonder why I still call myself an alcoholic. The urge to drink or use drugs vanished entirely many years ago. An alcoholic, my thinking goes, is not someone who chooses to drink but, rather, someone who is unable to choose not to drink. By that definition I am now the opposite of alcoholic. Then I remember. “My name is Russ and I am an alcoholic” is by far the most powerful admission of my life. It was the first step of my journey into a life of sobriety. Today it continues to be the simple prelude to new friendships and astonishing experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous. It connects who I am now and what it is like now to who I was during those precious 28 years of drinking and using. Every one of those years and all the things that happened during them are bricks and mortar in the foundation of my life today.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post Atheist in a Foxhole first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Covid-19 cases in the US surpass 10 million

The United States has reached another grim milestone in this pandemic as the Covid-19 cases in the US has officially crossed the 10 million mark. The country has also averaged more than 100,000 cases for a consecutive period of seven days. More than fifty million people have been infected by the virus globally and around 1.25 million have died of it, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Director of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota Michael Osterholm believes that the covid-19 cases in the US could reach 200,000 in a day in few days and that won’t surprise him. He said that the cases of the coronavirus are increasing in the country in such great amounts that no one could have ever predicted. Osterholm has been selected as a part of the Covid-19 advisory board by Joe Biden.

Also Read: How the President-elect plans to control the coronavirus outbreak in the US

The seven-day average of new covid-19 cases in the US was around 120,000 on Monday, which was nearly three times more than it was in September. Not only the increasing number of cases is alarming but also on Monday according to the Covid Tracking Project there were more than 59,000 hospitalizations. That’s the highest number of hospitalizations since the 25th of July but a little less from the 15th of April when the pandemic was at its peak with 59,940.

With increasing hospitalizations across the country, it becomes more likely that the deaths will also increase. In the last five days on average, more than 1,000 people in the US have died, the first time it has happened since August. So far, the virus has claimed the lives of more than 238,000 people in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins. Moreover, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington has predicted that another 110,000 people could die of the virus in the next two months.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar believe that a vaccine for the coronavirus shall be available for the most vulnerable people in the US by the end of December and for all the citizens by the end of March or the start of April. Azar made those comments a day after Pfizer announced that its covid-19 vaccine is more than 90% effective.

Azar said that Pfizer will be making and delivering nearly 20 million doses of the vaccine every month, starting by the end of November. He also said that Moderna is also producing its own covid-19 vaccine candidate. Azar added that by the end of December there will be enough doses of the vaccine to vaccinate the most vulnerable people, and by the end of January there will be enough vaccines for all first responders and health care workers, and by the end of March there will be enough vaccines for all the citizens of the US.

Pfizer’s vice president of Global Drug Safety Research and Development Dr. John Burkhardt said the distribution of the company’s covid-19 vaccine will be a challenge as the temperature required to store the vaccine is extremely low, far lower than the capacity of average freezers. However, Dr. Burkhardt assures that a group of very talented and experienced people of Pfizer is working to solve this.

The post Covid-19 cases in the US surpass 10 million appeared first on Spark Health MD.