I love you. I am listening.

For as long as I can remember I have kept a quote journal. I enjoy filling page after page with words that bring light to dark times. Back in the spring of 2016 while in rehab, I carried around a notebook and wrote down what I thought were nuggets of wisdom from Twelve Step meetings. A few days ago I pulled that old journal off my bookshelf to find this quote:

Reading this quote six years later makes me scratch my head in confusion and concern. Does this mean my thoughts are unsafe? Does this mean I am not to be trusted with my own emotions? Does this mean I am supposed to live in a constant state of dissociation?

I believed this quote was true for many years. I believed continuous distraction was the only way to survive without allowing my thoughts to implode upon my life. I kept waiting for something external to “fix me.” But now, after 17 months of practicing a more self-compassionate version of sobriety, I can’t help but call bullshit on that quote.

My favorite antithesis to that common Twelve Step way of thinking is a guided meditation led by Sarah Blondin called, “I love you. I am listening.”

Blondin says: “When we live in a state of distraction, we often forget that there is a heart and self within us that needs love and attention. We are often so busy showing up for others in this way that we neglect to care for our own hearts. This creates a type of separation and alienation from our source of love. One of the most potent and powerful ways to realign with our hearts and our deepest self is by saying - I love you. I am listening.”

The first time I heard this 13 minute meditation I wept. It was like someone had finally given me permission to connect with my truest self for the first time in my life. I felt a tenderness and a sorrow for the girl inside of me who was taught that living here - in between my own ears - was not only dangerous, but also to be avoided if I wanted to get sober.

For me, recovery from an eating disorder and alcohol addiction are not possible when I believe it is unsafe to be with my own thoughts. In order to heal, I need to love and listen to the parts of myself that I have been numbing for 20 years.

Today I am going to rip out that page in my old quote journal and burn it. I am going to buy a new journal and write this on the first page:

The safest place for me to build a home is between my own ears.

Danger lives in constant distraction.

I love you.

I am listening.

I am compassionately curious

For the past several months I have been experiencing vivid flashbacks. The type of flashbacks that remind me of the terrible, relationship-ending things I did while drinking. When these flashes happen, I lose grip of my surroundings. I get stuck in a quicksand of self-berating thoughts. For about five minutes, until I am able to regroup, I am short-tempered, sweaty, emotional, and unable to focus on the present moment.

Everyone knows that drugs make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Ambitions and cognitive functioning are lowered. Anger and suppressed emotions are heightened. Chaos ensues. It makes sense that after a ten year span of alcohol addiction, I experienced and caused several traumatic events.

I imagine flashbacks are a common occurrence for most people in sobriety. It’s almost like addiction causes its own unique type of PTSD. Losing relationships, being labeled an alcoholic, and being criminalized for my pain are all deeply traumatic experiences. The problem is, all of this is considered normal. No one teaches newly sober folks about the magical powers of practicing compassionate curiosity while healing from trauma. Instead, I am expected to somehow manage PTSD symptoms below the surface after being told I am powerless and filled with shameful character defects.

In a TedTalk called Understanding PTSD's Effects on Brain, Body, and Emotions, Janet Seahorn describes PTSD symptoms, like my flashbacks, as a hidden wound, a silent scream. Seahorn doesn’t believe PTSD is a disorder, but rather a reordering of neural and sensory pathways. Parts of the brain - the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala - actually change during traumatic events. The sensory system is overloaded and stress hormones are released causing the brain to reset neural pathways as a survival mechanism.

Seahorn says trauma can manifest in our lives as hypervigilance, nightmares, night sweats, panic attacks, insomnia, physical pain, and of course, flashbacks. All of this makes it extremely difficult to figure out how to soberly function in the real world.

When I choose to look at my flashbacks with a compassionately curious gaze, I can’t help but wonder these four things:

1. What if these flashbacks are actually a perfectly normal response to all that has happened in my life? 

2. What if I stopped beating myself for responding this way?

3. What tools can I use to reroute this deeply engrained trauma groove in my brain?

4. What if compassionate curiosity is the birthplace of healing?

According to Seahorn, a few common ways to begin healing from trauma include: trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, meditation, yoga and tai chi, service dogs, harm reduction, and grounding practices. Books and documentaries can also help. It is impossible to have a conversation about addiction, trauma, and compassionate curiosity without Gabor Mate's book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and docuseries The Wisdom of Trauma. Oprah's empathetic approach to trauma in her recent book What Happened to You? is another great resource.

Additionally, in recent years, countless articles and studies* on the life-altering effects of psychopharmacological medicine have become impossible to ignore. One of my favorite writers and researchers of all time, Michael Pollen, recently released a book and a four part docuseries on Netflix called How to Change Your Mind. Although I personally have never tried psychedelics, this documentary has removed previous stigmas and judgments I held towards those who have. Pollen's work sparks compassionate curiosity. Contrastly, my shero Holly Whitaker summed up her therapist guided psilocybin experience on this podcast episode as, “Fucking terrible. I threw up twice.” Plant-based medicine might not be for everyone, but I do think it is worth exploring if other treatments fail.

In my opinion, mainstream institutions of recovery and incarceration don't work because they completely miss the mark on trauma-informed care. In fact, I believe the system itself causes trauma because my worst flashbacks involve handcuffs. Luckily I am learning this is not a me problem, it is a societal problem. There is nothing wrong with me or other addicts. The problem lies within the criminalization of pain and trauma.

Unresolved trauma is a heavy burden to carry. But when I look at my trauma through a compassionately curious lense, I can see my flashbacks are a normal biological response and nothing to be ashamed of. Best of all, as the shame lifts, the magical healing powers of compassionate curiosity begin.

I am compassionately curious.

***Here are a just a few psychopharmacological medicine articles and studies:

Ketamine – Guernica (guernicamag.com)

The Next Big Addiction Treatment - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

What is Microdosing, and Does it Work? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Mental Health Startup Journey Colab Aims To Develop Mescaline As An FDA-Approved Treatment For Alcohol Use Disorder (forbes.com)

Could psilocybin mushrooms help with depression? | The Independent

I am experiencing ambiguous loss

Two summers ago, after a year of shameful drinking behavior, I ran away from my hometown and quit my job via drunken text message. I wasn’t willing or able to show up for the shit show of a life my drinking had, once again, created. Acknowledging the pain I had caused my loved ones was unbearable. So rather than dealing with the situation, I fled.

Ever since then I have been experiencing an unexplainable sense of grief. My family is still alive and well. Why does it feel like I experienced multiple deaths? Does everyone think I am just a cold-hearted addict? Am I even allowed to feel this way after causing so much pain?

Recently I stumbled upon a term coined by Pauline Boss in the 1970s called ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss occurs when a person suffers a confusing loss that they are unable to process. Boss describes two basic types of ambiguous loss:

1. Person perceived as physically absent, but psychologically present.
2. Person perceived as physically present, but psychologically absent.

One of the hardest parts about recovery, for me and possibly most addicts, is coming to terms with the first kind of ambiguous loss. One of Al-Anon's main principles is detachment, for goodness sake. Al-Anon teaches folks to physically remove themselves from the addict's life as a form of self-preservation. It’s not uncommon for addicts to lose all communication with their families. My family has been physically absent from my life for two years, but sometimes psychologically present through my iPhone. The distance between us has created what feels like a large frozen mass of grief hovering above my heart.

Additionally, there is no doubt in my mind that families who deal with addiction first hand also experience the second type of ambiguous loss. While I was engaged with my eating disorder and alcohol addiction, I was physically present, but dead on the inside. My addictions worked as numbing agents, freezing all emotion. My family was not living with me, they were living with a hollow frame fueled by shame.

Understanding ambiguous loss helps me normalize and understand the gut-wrenching grief that comes with sobriety. I have been grieving my life before, during, and after addiction without proper language in a society that stigmatizes and looks down upon me for years. The cards have not been stacked in my favor. It makes sense that this is hard.

Pauline Boss’s work finally put language to my experience. Her work has helped me understand my emotions and, as a result, has helped lift some of my “runaway addict” shame. Next time I feel that pit of ambiguous loss in my stomach, I can welcome those emotions with open arms knowing it is perfectly normal to feel this way. 

I am experiencing ambiguous loss.

I use my anger to fuel change

Lately I have been doom scrolling and reposting angry words to my Instagram story more often than I’d like to admit. Embarrassingly, I have even picked a few angry fights with people in the comment section. Due to the current state of the world (and the American political system), it’s been easy to get sucked into the chaos.

The main emotion I am experiencing these days is fear. It’s a type of fear that shows up in my life as red hot fiery anger. I have spent my entire life trying to be a nonreactive “good girl.” No one taught me how to healthily cope with fear that manifests as anger. My go-to strategy has been stuffing my anger deep below the surface and praying I don’t explode.

For me, social media is like a drug. It's good for distracting and numbing my emotions in the short term, but ultimately, it makes me feel like garbage. Social media causes a feeling of anger that skyrockets my heart rate and makes my armpits sweaty. Social media, I have learned, is not a safe place for my anger or my nervous system.

One of my favorite quotes on anger comes from Glennon Doyle:

“Anger delivers important information about where one of our boundaries has been crossed. When we answer the door and accept that delivery, we begin to know ourselves better. When we restore the boundary that was violated, we honor ourselves.”

This quote leaves me wondering if social media is one of the things violating my boundaries. Is this highly addictive app helping or hurting me? What would happen if I spent time away from Instagram? How else can I release some of the anger that has been living in my body for decades with no escape?

As much as I dislike feeling angry, I am learning how to use my anger and pent up negative energy to fuel change. The first change I am making is limiting the amount of time I spend on social media. Unfollowing triggering accounts also helps. Next, I can ease my political fears by educating myself on future candidates. The time I used to spend doom scrolling can be spent advocating for myself.

Additionally, I can channel my fear and anger by creating art, meditating, speaking to a therapist, listening to podcasts, engaging with a like-minded community, and participating in local peaceful protests. I can release pent up anger from my body with movement; yoga, bike rides, dancing, boxing, and long walks in nature all do the trick. I can also practice somatic therapy and deep breathing exercises to calm my nervous system.

The world around us is on literal fire. Everyone is afraid, everyone is angry. Answering the door and greeting the delivery of my anger with doom scrolling won't fuel change. Change happens when I restore the boundaries social media has violated and honor myself by choosing endless self-compassion.

I use my anger to fuel change.

I release the idea that things should be different

A few days ago we celebrated one of my favorite days of the year - the Summer Solstice. It is the day of the year with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. This kick off to summer is what I look forward to all winter long. My favorite flowers are in full bloom and my vegetable garden will soon follow. I feel surrounded by magic and wonder.

While at the park with my dog, Teddy, I gathered a handful of dying dandelions; the fluffy type that have lost their yellow pigment. Did you know dead dandelions are a symbol of hope, healing, and renewal? When blown into the wind, their seeds are dispersed, bringing new life wherever they go.

One of my favorite ways to celebrate this change of season is to shed aspects of my life that are no longer serving me. This is a season of rebirth. I want to release the idea that things in my life should be different.

I am currently 34 years old. I do not have a driver’s license or kids or a husband or a full time job or a mortgage or any of the other things society says 34 year olds should have figured out by now. I have been struggling with FOMO and intense resentment everytime my family posts photos from their fancy, booze-infested summer vacations. I have been allowing comparisons to be the thief of my joy.

But on the day of the solstice, with my dead dandelions in hand, I experienced a mental shift. I might be missing out on “typical” 34 year old things, but that doesn’t mean my life isn’t full or worth living. I still get to spend time each day engaged in my joy practices: Tempest calls, bike rides, gardening, writing, reading, learning, contemplating, baking, dog mothering, blasting Taylor Swift, and napping. It’s almost like l have been given space to create my own rehab, my own way of recovering. I have been given space to get to know my truest self, with minimal distractions from the outside world, for the first time in my life.

I celebrated the solstice by sitting next to a small stream at sunset, making wishes (a.k.a. releasing shit), and blowing each of the dead dandelion leaves into the wind. 

I release the idea that I am behind in life

I release the FOMO and the resentment

I release the fear of being different

I release the self-doubt

I release the comparisons

I release the idea that my sensitivity is a weakness

I release the idea that my recovery needs to be perfect

I release the fear of letting my parents down

I release the idea that I am crazy

I release all of the shoulds

Most importantly, my dead dandelions and I are releasing the idea that my life needs to look differently than it does at this very moment.

☀️🌞😎 Happy belated Summer Solstice ☀️🌞😎

I practice imperfectly

Ten summers ago, in 2012, after spending 28 days in a 24/7 lockdown hospital psych ward, I was admitted to a longer term, partial inpatient eating disorder program just outside of Toledo, Ohio. It was the second of the six treatment experiences I have had and I will never, ever forget it.

At the time, I was under the age of 26 and still included in my parents upper-middle class health insurance coverage. This allowed me to experience a holistic, woman-led program rooted in compassion, psycho education, exposure therapy, DBT, mindfulness, and actual scientific research. Even though I was in treatment, it was still one of the most magical summers of my entire life. The intensely vulnerable nature of treatment allowed me to form deep, healing friendships with my fellow patients.

One of my favorite parts of this program was its step-down process. This meant during the final few weeks of treatment, I would drive home, spend a few days with my parents, and then come back to treatment and process how the home visit went. My therapist understood that returning home after being held in the confines of treatment would be difficult and triggering. I was given space to practice, even if that meant I had a slip.

There was zero expectation to practice this new skill perfectly. There was no punishing. My treatment team and I were simply collecting data points. No shame necessary.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016. I was on probation for my second DUI, no longer covered by my parent’s fancy insurance, and had just completed 4 different state-funded, Twelve Step based inpatient rehab programs over a nine month period. This time, instead of being treated for a much more socially acceptable eating disorder, I was being treated as a low-life alcoholic. Financially, I was forced into a traumatizing and dehumanizing system that believes shame, powerlessness, and criminalization are the path to healing. If I didn’t recover perfectly, I would be sent to jail for years.

For the past decade, I have always wondered why humans who struggle with substance abuse are punished so much more harshly than those who struggle with eating disorders. The root causes of my eating disorder and my addictions are exactly the same. It doesn't make sense that my eating disorder was given way more grace than my alcohol addiction.

If I learned one thing in treatment ten years ago, it’s that I am allowed to normalize imperfections as I begin practicing an alcohol-free life. With Tempest, the addict shaming involved in slips or relapses has been replaced with holistic compassion. I am proud to say that I have only slipped with alcohol 4 times in the past 16 months. I have not been perfect, but I am practicing something brand new - in a culture obsessed with my drug of choice - at a 99.18% success rate. What a fucking miracle.

In my experience, the most effective way to start building an alcohol-free life is to allow myself the grace of imperfection.

I practice imperfectly.

Freedom Has Been Found

A couple of weeks ago I was included in a cousin group text that said, “We’re at a wedding doing pictures and (the song) Family Tradition comes on.. We need a party!!!!! A good old [our last name] party with drinks, food, drinks, a dance floor, and drinks!!! Love you all!”

Let me be clear, I am not writing this as a diss or a jab at my family. It is possible that my cousin was drinking when she sent this; and I am the queen of sending damaging drunk texts, so I can’t judge her. I am writing this because I don’t think my story is unique. I think many of us come from families that bond, commiserate, and celebrate with alcohol.

When I was a kid, my family was everything. I looked up to my cousins and used them as the blueprint upon which I built my life. They influenced everything from my hair color to the way I dressed to the people I dated. And like it or not, my family’s normalization of alcohol was also highly influential on my adolescent brain.

For about a week after I received that text, I felt fueled by anger, resentment, and a deep-seeded sense of inferiority. But yesterday, while crying and biking around town with my dog, Teddy, I saw a sign outside a Methodist church that said, “Freedom has been found.”

Yes, it’s extremely painful to feel left out of family traditions because of alcohol, but what if I am actually the one who has found freedom?

My journey to sobriety has not been easy. I desperately tried to quit drinking for about ten years before it finally clicked. Instead of building healthy relationships, starting a career, and planning a family during my 20s, I was forced to survive the criminal justice system and all of the trauma our society places on us “alcoholics.” I felt like I was crazy, doomed, and forever chained to alcohol. There was zero freedom in my life.

Now, 16 months into imperfectly practicing an alcohol-free life, I can see there truly is freedom on the other side of our society’s normalization of alcohol.

Freedom is found in my daily hangover-free sunrise walks with Ted

Freedom is found in feeling and learning from all of my emotions

Freedom is found in silence

Freedom is found in Quitting and Doing Hard Things

Freedom is found in educating and advocating for myself politically

Freedom is found in creating a life I do not want to escape from

Freedom is found in my garden

Freedom is found in holding down a job and not having to call in hungover

Freedom is found in being in control of my finances because I am no longer spending all of my money on alcohol or blackout online shopping

Freedom is found in not obsessing over where my next drink will come from

Freedom is found in no longer poisoning myself

Freedom is found in learning to ask for help

Freedom is found in being fully present for my life

The next time I experience a family-related drinking trigger, I can step back, breathe deeply, and remember that freedom has already been found. The world around us is going to keep drinking for the foreseeable future. However, I do think we are on the forefront of an alcohol-free progressive era. I do think, as Holly Whitaker would say, someday soon-ish seeing people drink at the airport will be just as taboo as seeing people smoke at the airport.

I truly believe freedom has been found on the other side of the alcohol.

I release childhood burdens

Between 1985-1988 my dad played AAA baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization, one step below the Big Leagues. I was born in 1988; the same year he suffered a career-ending shoulder injury. He was forced to move back to his small hometown and work a 9-5 office job. Just like that, his dreams were shattered.

As you can imagine, I spent all of my childhood freetime on a ball field. Baseball was almost like a religion in our home. It makes sense that I created a story in my head that said I wasn’t good enough unless I was the best player on the team.

When I was a freshman in high school I made the varsity team and a summer team that traveled the country. It felt like I was doing everything right. I was living up to my family name. Except, as the competition steepened, I began breaking out into uncontrollable sobs on the field every time I struck out or made an error. And once I started crying, it felt impossible to stop.

I became so enmeshed in living out my dad’s dream life, that I completely lost myself in the process. I chose to spend so much time in the batting cages during the offseason that my hands bled, blistered, and calloused. I thought I was a failure if my name didn’t make the local paper for hits or RBIs. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect that it eventually drowned me.

By the time I was a senior, my softball career had crumbled into a full blown eating disorder. I was no longer present. No longer able to focus on softball. No longer good enough.

A few years ago when I stumbled upon this Carl Jung quote, it stopped me in my tracks: 

“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.”

That quote made me feel seen for the first time in my life, like I wasn't crazy. Maybe as a highly sensitive infant I absorbed some of the career-ending grief my dad was experiencing. Maybe I’ve been carrying this burden my entire life. Maybe this is the birthplace of my not good enough schema.

Last week I took my dog to a local high school softball game, only to find myself sitting in a puddle of all too familiar uncontrollable tears. When I got home, I wrote my teenage self a letter:

Dear KelsiBelle,
I see you, sweet girl. I see how hard you’ve been working and the intense sadness you feel. I see your fears, your anger, and your insecurities. But I also see your dedication, your huge heart, and your smile. I see the warmth and the light within you even during this difficult time. You do not need to shrink, mold, or mask yourself in order to be accepted. There is life beyond the softball field. It is perfectly normal to grieve your past; but remember, you have the power within yourself to create a beautiful life you don’t want to escape from. You are good enough just the way you are. I love you.

One of the best parts of my sobriety journey is learning to create a life where I am okay on my own. Where I don’t need to look to anyone or anything for approval. I can create a life that feels true and joyous for me. Sobriety gives me the freedom I’ve been searching for beyond the ball field. 

Most importantly, sobriety is teaching me how to, as Jung would say, release my own self-made childhood burdens. I am learning that it is possible to develop my own sense of agency, my own voice. The cloud of inferiority that has been weighing me down for 20 years is finally starting to lift as I rethink, reframe, and release childhood burdens.

What if I am living the dream?

My favorite sober activity during the warmer months is biking around town while pulling my fur baby, Teddy, behind me in a mini doggie trailer. We reside in a tiny, tulip-filled, and touristy mid-Michigan town - perfect for our daily joyrides.

As beautiful as this town is, I couldn’t help but notice there are only two different types of housing: (1) immaculate upper-middle class houses or multi million dollar mansions visible to tourists and (2) older income-based apartments hidden on the back streets. This always makes me scratch my head in confusion and wonder. How is it possible for there to be such a huge wealth gap within a one mile radius?

Yesterday while cruising around the subdivision with the biggest houses in town, I found myself feeling ashamed that my inability to stop getting arrested (or sober) in my 20s led to shitty credit and living three blocks down in the housing for poor people.

To my surprise, when I saw someone outside watering their mansion garden, they instantly perked up as they noticed Ted and I approaching. They laughed, waved, and said, “You and your pup are living the dream!”

On the outside I kept my cool, politely returned the smile and the wave, and thanked them. But on the inside I was freaking out and thinking, “I actually have two DUIs, no drivers license, walk to a hairnet wearing job that pays 12.25$/hour, and live in the income-based housing three blocks down. I was just feeling shitty about myself thinking you and your mansion are the definition of living the dream. How ironic, Universe!”

As Ted and I rode back to our 795 sq ft. home, I thought of BrandonBeHappy and pondered the What Ifs. What if I really am the one living the dream? What if Tempest’s bottom-up approach to sobriety is the dream because it allows me to step off the hamster wheel of chasing prestige, perfectionism, and privilege? What if learning to create a life I don’t want to escape from - regardless of my income - is living the dream?

Here’s what I have learned while practicing sobriety with Tempest: it is possible to create a cozy home anywhere. The wealth gap is real, but that doesn’t mean I need to feel ashamed of my history with alcohol and where I landed as a result. All I need to create a cozy home is a roof over my head, running water, space to grow a few plants, clean sheets, twinkle lights, a very spoiled Ted, and my sobriety.

What if the person watering their mansion garden was right?

What if I am living the dream?

Finally, A Safe Place to Land

Ten years ago, just a few weeks shy of my 24th birthday, I was arrested for my first DUI. Over the next eight years I was arrested 4 more times and admitted to rehab 6 times. I was what the recovery world and the criminal justice system called a “chronic relapser.” I was the person who drank the same day I completed probation or rehab every single time. I was the person who was kicked out of two different halfway houses in just 10 days. I was the person who could not, for the life of me, figure out how to live an alcohol-free life.

I think the reason I kept drinking, even after each new rock bottom, was because our current system of recovery didn’t feel like a safe place to land. I was forced into a recovery system that didn’t make sense to me. People (ab)use substances because they are in pain or have unresolved trauma; and rather than providing adequate mental health services and time to heal, we criminalize, shame, and abandon folks who self-medicate with drugs (alcohol is a drug, btw.)

We live in a world that uses punishment and shame as foundational tools for treating addiction. Each time I relapsed, my pain was met by a harsher consequence. The repercussions for my second DUI were much worse than my first; and if I had gotten a 3rd DUI, I would’ve been given a prison sentence and felony charges. Finding a job with no drivers license and two DUIs on my record is hard enough. Imagine what further damnation would’ve done for my already dying shell of a self.

After each relapse I always wondered, does our criminal justice system actually believe humiliation and oppression are the path to sobriety? Does our current system actually believe sharing my mugshot in the criminal section of my hometown newspaper for everyone to see is the first step toward healing?

Worse yet, in my experience, the system never seemed to care about treating the thing that caused me to self-medicate in the first place. All they seemed to care about was making sure I understood that I was powerless and full of character defects. My worth as a human being became solely dependent on my sober day count, or lack thereof. I was given a label (alcoholic) rooted in shame. I was told I was crazy, broken, and unworthy of basic human rights. So I continued to drink, unwilling to land in that unsafe place.

Luckily, in 2016 while on probation for my 2nd DUI and stuck living in my parent’s basement with a beeping alcohol-detecting-ankle-tether to keep me company, I found a blog called Hip Sobriety. Finally, someone (Holly Whitaker) was speaking my language. Finally, someone was putting words to my experience in a way that made sense. Finally, someone told me there is no such thing as an alcoholic; I wasn’t crazy or broken or powerless. Finally, a breath of fresh air. *Finally.*

Unfortunately, and also unsurprisingly, I immediately drank when that stint of probation ended in 2018. Then I lost everything. Again. I didn’t know what the point was. I absorbed all of the bullshit the system wanted me to believe about us low-life alcoholics, us chronic-relapsers. I felt forever doomed; my disease forever doing pushups in the parking lot just waiting for me to relapse.

But, I continued to drunkenly follow Holly’s work for a couple of years and eventually joined Tempest in December 2020. Not only did Tempest give me a safe place to land, they also taught me to forgive myself for landing here.

In my perfect world, Tempest would have existed and been prescribed ten years ago after my first DUI. With all of that shame-based recovery in my system, it became impossible to forgive myself each time I landed at a new bottom. Those other programs believed making amends to others was of utmost importance, but they never taught me that I, myself, am worthy of love and forgiveness. They never taught me how to forgive myself for landing here in the first place.

Tempest welcomed all parts of me with open arms. Tempest understood that I was a traumatized human in need of a holistic approach to recovery. Tempest works to remove all of the shame from my story. Tempest is a label-free space rooted in life-changing and unconditional compassion. Tempest told me there is no fixing because I am not broken. Tempest gives me agency and encourages me to create a recovery path that is just as special and unique as I am. Tempest, and reading Quit Like A Woman, truly changed my relationship with alcohol. Tempest saved my life.

Tempest understood that people like me, known as “chronic relapsers,” are actually the people in the most pain, with the most trauma. We don’t need more shame or punishment. We just need to be seen, heard, and loved. We just need a safe place to land.

I am writing this fourteen months in my alcohol-free journey, and can’t help but wonder what type of world it would be if everyone who struggles with substance abuse landed at Tempest, rather than whatever is happening with our current criminal justice system.

Imagine what type of world it would be if we all had a safe place to land.

I plant seeds of hope

Spring has sprung! Yesterday was the first short sleeve, Birkenstock wearing day of the year in Michigan. The snow is melting and the birds are singing. Soon the tulips will bloom and the trees will be bursting with bright green buds. I was able to soak up some much needed vitamin D on my second story apartment balcony. In my opinion, spring is the most exciting time of the year.

At this time last year, I was only about two months into my alcohol-free journey and struggling. For as long as I can remember spring has been greeted by Detroit Tigers baseball and an orange slice wedged into the first Oberon of the season. Spring, as wonderful as it is, still triggers memories of sitting on the back patio with an ice cold celebratory drink in hand.

Last year in an attempt to start a new sober tradition, I decided to plant a balcony garden. This 4’x9’ space became my own little jungle oasis. I grew cherry and Cherokee purple tomatoes, red, orange, yellow, and green bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeños, pickling cucumbers, carrots, spinach, radishes, strawberries, mint, basil, catnip, and zinnias.

Each morning while my coffee brewed, I filled large watering cans and gave my precious plants a drink. I didn’t know it back then, but that garden allowed me to plant seeds of hope during a seemingly hopeless time. The garden gave me something to nurture before I could nurture myself.

When I first got sober I didn’t have a job or a driver’s license, but I had my garden. Drinking made me feel trapped; the garden allowed me to grow. Drinking kept me stuck in cycles of craving instant gratification; the garden taught me lessons about delayed gratification. Drinking made me resent folks who were outside enjoying the warm weather while I was hungover in bed; the garden welcomed me back out into the sunshine.

The garden gave me something to call my own. My own tradition. My own something to look forward to. My own calming space. Maybe all of us could benefit from celebrating patio season with a tiny garden (or just one indoor plant) instead of drinking. Maybe all of us could plant seeds of hope and watch them grow.

It might take a few years of practicing new traditions before I stop associating spring with drinking, and that’s okay. At least this year I am also craving seeds, growth, fresh blooms, and the smell of potting soil. At least this year I know there is immense, life-giving power to be found in a small patio garden.

I plant seeds of hope.