Posts by Keith Howard
Andria owns, operates and is the spiritual center of WorkStuff, a staffing solutions company in Manchester. WorkStuff is the Hope Recovery Festival’s platinum sponsor, with a generous $5,000 donation. You’ll have a chance to hear her at the festival, and would be wise to listen closely.
I don’t know the secret of successful long-term recovery. I do know one of MY secrets is to express gratitude multiple times a day. I’m not much for organized religion, nor disorganized religion or even chaotic religion. Still, growing up in this culture at this time, I find it appropriate to attach the word “God” to my messages to the infinite.
I’m the director of Hope for New Hampshire Recovery, New Hampshire’s premier recovery community center, but that’s not what I want to talk about today.
For the non-using addict or the non-drinking alcoholic, life demands some kind of solution. There are a lot of them, and over the course of this month we’ll explore some of the major ones.
I keep my means of recovery to myself. Oh, I’m proud of BEING in recovery, of having returned to the land of the living after existing in the shadowland of drink and drugs for 35 years. I’m proud of the work I do and the people I work with and work for—Hope staff and Hope members are among the finest, fairest and funniest people I’ve ever known. I’m proud of the changes I’ve made in my life, and that today I am much closer to the man my parents dreamed of when they brought me home from the pound.
Ninety-eight years ago, Bertrand Russell published a little book called, What I Believe, an extended essay on humanity, meaning, morality and purpose in a godless universe. Unlike Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, Believe is not necessarily a light read. It’s not quite a slog through a swamp, but it’s at least a muddy hike with wet shoes.
September is National Recovery Month. It’s also the month for celebrating honey, bourbon, prostate health, gospel music, yoga, and guide dogs. While my squirrel mind would love to find an organizing principle among these diverse topics—recovery, bourbon and guide dogs as a trio almost writes its own jokes—I’m going to write about what I know and stick to recovery.
Extroverts draw energy from others, losing energy when alone. Introverts, contrariwise, charge our batteries when alone and steadily use them up with others. As a boy, I envied Superman his Fortress of Solitude, and regularly escaped to a crawl space or basement room or tree house or spot in the woods. I liked people, or at least most of them, but I needed to be alone.
On my computer desktop, I’ve got a folder called “To Be Finished” containing more than a hundred files of ideas I thought I wanted to write about. Some of these are a few thousand words, others a few sentences. Today is Sunday. I’ve spent the day hiking in the Todra Gorge—as beautiful as anything in Arizona—and poking around the city of Tinghir. I am tired, too tired to move more files into that graveyard of a folder. Instead of writing a full piece today, I’m copying and pasting the things I’ve started this week, then abandoned. Thank you.
Five hours of silent driving today. Just as one can wake from a dream and examine it all morning, I spent today pondering last night in the desert. Nothing has formed, I have no lesson or, God forbid, moral to offer, but I’d like to share some of the thoughts that came to me last night and today. They may eventually combine to form a wonderful mental meal, but for now they’re just ingredients sitting on the counter.