GET YOUR DAZZLE BACK
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When you first start attending recovery meetings, you might notice all kinds of strange sayings plastered all over the walls. They’re short and memorable, but not always considered sweet. In fact, many folks say they absolutely hated all those recovery sayings when they first got sober. But once they start working a recovery program, they …
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We’re rough, tough and ready for action, right? So why the heck would we EVER surrender to anything? Surrender brings to mind some whimpering, beat-up thing waving a ragged white flag. That’s not a pretty picture. But neither is the reality you get from fighting something you know you can’t beat. Or having your fingernails …
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When you’ve had a tough day, few things are more delicious than curling up with your dog, putting your TV streaming option on auto-play, and shutting out the rest of the world. Whether you call it downtime, alone time or “me” time, we all need time to decompress away from the rest of society. The …
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When I celebrated my first year of sobriety on July 23, 2000, members of my recovery group let me in on a little secret. They said when I had first come in, they had voted me least likely to succeed. They may have even put money on it (it was Brooklyn, after all). Instead of …
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When we learn to drive a car, the instructor tells us about the pedals, gears, that impossible thing called parallel parking, and loads of other stuff. But not once do I recall the driving instructor telling me that getting in a crash was part of the driving process. Yet that’s exactly the same kind of …
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I fell in love with dogs about six years into my recovery, and I’ve never been the same since. The more I loved them, the more I learned from them. One of the greatest lessons my dogs continue to teach me is how to live in the moment. Check out how this works in this …
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When things are making you happy, do you let them? Or do you block out the joy because it makes you feel guilty, undeserving or just plain wrong. I used to block out the joy, but I found a way to fix it. It’s all right here, in my first vlog EVER: The Rynski 3-Minute …
Jim Morrison. Earnest Hemingway. Vincent Van Gogh. Charles Bukowski. These guys were just a few of my many excuses to keep drinking. They were, after all, creative and famous. And I was certain they got that way because they drank. So I had to keep drinking to achieve the same. Heck, if Bukowski’s real life …
Travel was such fun for everyone when I used to drink and fly, the entire airplane once erupted in cheers. That’s right. On an extended flight to Germany, all passengers cheered heartily and loudly – or so I was later told – after my hours-long drunken babble finally stopped because I passed out. Why flying …
Early recovery for me was a scary time for many reasons, with one of the most frightening thoughts being what to do if I were at a party, celebration or wherever – and someone asked if I’d like a drink. Egads! Since I was in no way willing to tell people I was in recovery, …