Sober Enough: Just Show Up for Life, That’s Your Job A kind and wise teacher in my life could see I was anxiously managing my perfectionism. I was embarrassed that, as is the human experience, I am still learning life. I didn’t know the answers, I couldn’t anticipate every challenge and react with some imaginary skills of some imaginary master whose reflexes and reactions meets their own needs, the needs of others and life’s curveballs. I was going through life’s challenges, but I thought I should know all this already, didn’t I learn this already? Somehow, I have these imagined expectations ..read more

DRY JANUARY (and every month) Part II—This Blog’s for you (sounds like a beer commercial !?!?!), if you are either test-driving abstinence or if you have devoted yourself to being clean and sober as a new way of life. Just for Today is a conceptual game-changer, if your physically shaky or fighting ambivalence, but especially for the slippers among us who have sincerely tried to maintain sobriety and fell off the wagon. Dry January 2024 explores an idea we entertain as the #1 hack against cravings, temptation, doubt, crisis, or hopelessness: One Day @ a Time (ODAAT). Read/Download as a PDF CLI ..read more

Dry January: a history of assessing alcohol use disorder  Rebellion Dogs January 2024  click to Read or download a PDF: Dry January - making exploring our drinking habits hip In mid-1970s Montreal AA, almost every Alcoholics Anonymous group literature table had a yellow trifold that included: The AA phone number for meeting information or someone to talk to,  “Just for Today” – the AA philosophy that was practical, secular, bit-size approaches to deal with predictable challenges to maintaining sobriety.  The John Hopkins Hospital 20 Questions about alcohol use. Like th ..read more

CHECK OUT 3rd PRINTING 10th anniversary BEYOND BELIEF. READ OR DOWNLOAD OCTOBER 2023 BLOG IN PDF FORMAT What a decade we’re having!  Maybe you are new around these parts—welcome.  Maybe you remember January 2013—thanks for sticking around.  Ten years ago, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life was published. A 2nd printing in 2014 included a Foreword by author/historian Ernie Kurtz. Now, on the 10th anniversary, we offer a 3rd Printing. Now available, a hardcover, at your request, has been added to the paperback and eBook offerings. A new Preface was required—it’s bee ..read more

THE SECRET BOOKSHELF: Influences on AA’s creator that no one is talking about … until now.  Download/read PDF version HERE. First of all, thank you Bob K; having interviewed Bob on Rebellion Dogs Radio about his historical fiction, The Secret Diaries of Bill W., my title does in deed channel the playful intent of looking at the facts, and then succumbing to the temptation of penciling in the blanks with what may have been. Two influential books were all the rage while the book Alcoholics Anonymous was being written. These two nonfiction, new thought movement offerings, as far as I can s ..read more

Rebellion Dogs Blog March 2023 Emotional Sobriety, stewardship and service, the Twelve Traditions, what is the connection in the role of finding lasting, meaningful recovery?  Download or read as a PDF HERE Inspired am I, by the March 2023 AA Grapevine: “Special Section: GET INTO SERVICE! Chairing sponsoring, being a GSR, joining committees, making coffee and more.” [i] The joy of giving; service of others, without compensation, is not a dull chore—it is the source of quality when it comes to recovery.  In the 2020 Great Britain (and Central Europe Region) AA membership survey, peopl ..read more

Oh Canada! Less people do spiritual stuff, like praying or turning to AA for help.  Read/print this February 2023 Blog in PDF The 2021 Canada census data shows a transitioning diversity in our neighborhood (culturally/racially diverse Canada) and an ever-larger population. This is in sharp contrast to our AA demographics and dwindling membership. USA/Canada 2022 Membership survey results will be posted this spring. Are we doing something wrong? What can be done to change our fortunes?  Much of my (day job) professional training has to do with people—like any career—but  it’s fi ..read more

Can we end of pessimism in 2023? Expectations lag behind outcome rates of recovery from addiction                      PRINT or READ a PDF copy This blog is of general interest for anyone; shake any family tree and one or two alcoholics fall out of it. Certainly, our reporting today is directed to the “sober-curious”—if you are struggling with alcohol (or other drug) use and thinking about recovery. Do you care about someone suffering from addiction? Are you in healthcare? This blog’s for you ..read more

Read/download the PDF version of this blog, Remembering John Lauritsen: A Freethinker in AA Professionals, and hopefully more people in recovery from substance use disorder, are discovering or re-discovering the practical lived experience offered in AA’s “little book,” Living Sober. One non-alcoholic who has systematically studied AA members and outcome rates, as much or more than anyone, would be Dr. John F. Kelly. Dr Kelly is professor of Psychiatry in Addiction, Harvard Medical School:  “The way that AA has been shown to work in scientific studies is more aligned with the experiences r ..read more

There are a lot of fellowships where mutual-aid is available for almost every conceivable problem. Alcohol and other drug use disorders not a yes/no diagnosis anymore (eg: moderate, severe, chronic  alcohol use disorder). Some people identify as having an alcohol or other drug disorder but process addiction isn't something they identify with; they rarely fall into dark and downward spirals with sex, food, codependency or other traps that may ruin someone else's life. Some of us find that if some activity or substance offers comfort, we over do it or struggle to control it. How may peer-to ..read more