I live in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. That doesn’t make me special, but this certainly is a special place to live!

The journey we take is individual and private.  My river of recovery is my own. However, when we ask others our questions and sharing our insights, we enable all of us to grow and understand more about what this journey is really all about.

I like to use metaphors when speaking and writing.  They explain things that can’t truly be explained.  They put a picture in one’s mind.   I can relate to the picture in my mind.  I can explain things using this picture.  And so, for me, Life is a river.  I have a raft and a paddle and with these I navigate.  I have been on many parts of this river, followed tributaries, passed through rapids and calm stretches.  I have floated alone and with others.  I have made huge portages, dragging my raft long distances to find other rivers that looked promising.  I am now passing along Recovery River.

I come from a twelve step program.  However, I am learning that we can all use a hand when it comes to living; we can all use as much help as we can get through this life sanely and serenely.  The literature of my program has become for me a manual for living: the owner’s manual that neither my parents nor myself had as I grew.  A reference book for living and growing into adulthood.  One of the things that I learned early on into my program was that I was a 12 year old kid with 40 years of experience. Physically I was 52, but emotionally, and spiritually I was an adolescent, a human child. I needed to relearn how to live and how to grow into a human adult.  The rules I lived by and the way I moved through the world weren’t working.  If they had been, I wouldn’t have ended up on the the steps of a recovery centre.

And so I’ve created this blog to share some of my thoughts and experiences in recovery. Take what you like and leave the rest, as we say at meetings.  Try not to compare your story with mine.  Perhaps you can learn from my experience.  You needn’t go down the path of addiction in order to find happiness, joy and peace in your life.  You only need an open mind, your raft, your paddle and your river.

I invite you to pick up your paddle, align your raft and float along with my on the Recovery River.