Chris Wright joins us on The SHAIR Podcast today. He's a good friend of mine. We met in Costa Rica when he was at Costa Rica Recovery in rehab. Now Chris has recently celebrated one year clean and sober. The plan was six months ago that on his bucket list was at one year he was going to be on the SHAIR podcast and here we are. This is cool.
Yeah. We talked about it. You told me about some other guys that you were in contact with about that and I said, "I don't know. It sounded like a good goal." Keeping people off the streets, you know?
That's the goal, man. That's the goal. Whatever it takes, dude, seriously.
Whatever, whatever, whatever keeps you clean.
Expect a miracle. I have had an opportunity to hear a little bit of your story and it's heavy, man. I know that your parents have been pulling for you and I'm sure reconnecting with them has been a blessing. I want to hear all about that kind of stuff. Let's dive into your story. First, let's talk about what you were doing today. Take us into your normal daily routine including recovery.
All right. I try to center myself as much as I can in the morning, not very much. Once I'm off it's like a cup of coffee and go kind of person. It's important to me. Some people get down on their knees and pray or whatever. Whenever I'm conscious of it I'll just take a moment. Pretty much what I do is I ask a higher power for strength just to kind of do their will. Then I move forward with my day. Right now I'm working full time Monday through Friday so I do that. I'm an organic biodynamic farmer so I do pretty labor-intensive work and usually come home exhausted.
I have a dog who's pretty much my child. I hike, walk with him even though I'm exhausted every day. I'll eat something, put something in my body and then I usually hit a night meeting. Right now I'm trying to do three nights a week which is good for me and then I hit both weekends whenever possible. It's been kind of a transitional phase. I wasn't working full time through a large majority of my first year which was kind of a blessing. I hit well over three sixty-five meetings in my first year which I think was quite pivotal.
Maggie Shores joins on The SHAIR Podcast today!
"Getting sober was the most difficult transformation of my life, yet it turned out to be the most rewarding.
Looking back at my life, I have realized that I have never felt comfortable in my skin. I always wanted to be that person out there and wondered why I wasn’t. I often felt alone, and I couldn’t find my place in the world. But alcohol made me feel OK, it seemed like the perfect fix for all of my insecurities. I could do anything with a little buzz. I could be anyone I wanted to be, or anyone you wanted me to be.
I believed that alcohol gave me courage, made me happy, and created a life full of excitement and many friends! I was the ultimate party girl, a social butterfly, always the first to get a party started, for any reason, or no reason at all. Eventually alcohol had become my best friend and I couldn’t do anything without it and if it didn’t involve drinking I just didn’t do it!
My last drunk was not something I planned; there was nothing wrong in my life. It was a sunny Friday afternoon when I started drinking. However, when I woke up, it was Monday morning, and I was lying face down on the kitchen floor, barely able to move. The house was a wreck and I was still wearing the same clothes I had on two days ago. When I realized that I just spent the entire weekend in a blackout, I completely freaked out! Somewhere in the middle of all the crazy thoughts running through my head, I had a moment of clarity! I finally came to the complete understanding that I could NOT drink like a normal person, and that I really was an alcoholic.
My life begun on April 15, 2008 when I made a decision to stop drinking and to ask for help! My main support was from the 12 step program where by following the steps, I learned how to clean my past, get rid of the shame and guilt, find a Higher Power, and live a happy sober life.
To this day, I believe that every day that I do not take a drink is a miracle, because looking back, it is hard to believe that I am sober today. This was a difficult and scary journey, but I do not regret any moment of it. It has shaped me into the person that I am today, and sobriety has given me a second chance at life.
Most importantly, I am finally comfortable in my own skin."
Clean Date: April 15, 2008
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Mishka Shubaly joins us on The SHAIR Podcast today!
After receiving an expensive MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, Mishka Shubaly promptly realized he was more interested in playing music in dive bars than writing. He lived out of a Toyota minivan for a year, touring nonstop, and has shared the stage with artists like The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Decemberists among others. Bad Dreams, a narrative published in NYPress about his romance with an opiate marked his return to writing.
His Kindle Singles for Amazon have all been bestsellers. He writes true stories about drink, drugs, disasters, desire, deception and their aftermath. His work has been praised for its grit, humor, fearlessness and heart. The Long Run, his mini-memoir detailing his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultrarunner is one of the best-selling Kindle Singles to date.
Mishka Shubaly lives in Brooklyn where he writes music and plays bass for Freshkills. He is at work on a new solo record of his original songs and a full-length memoir. He does not own a dog but he thinks about them often.
The premise for I Swear I'll Make It Up to You is as follows
A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a twenty-four-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school’s campus, then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother, but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol.
This episode was brought to you by AddictionUnscripted.com
Laurie McGarvey joins us on The SHAIR Podcast today. She is the founder of Recovery Management Solutions, and Laurie is currently fundraising for the Herren Project for this Boston 2016 marathon.
Sober Date: June 13th, 2008
This episode was brought to you by AddictionUnscripted.com
So Laurie, tell us about how your life is today because I'm assuming it's very busy, give us your daily routine and how you squeeze in recovery.
Laurie: Okay. Let me just say that for me, this alcoholic recovery is my routine, so everything that I do, whether it's from when I get up in the morning and I get down on my knees and I say, "God's will, not mine, be done today," and that's how I have to move. When I don't stay with that routine, you know what? Quite honestly, I get negative. That's not who I've learned to be. I really try and stick with my daily routine of prayer and some type of ...
I'm not real good at meditating because it's tough for me to sit still so I try and do more of a walking and gratitude list even before I move into the day, get into the workplace. I have 2 kids. I have a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old and a dog and they're very active. I try and keep something, like I use my phone a lot, and I keep everything, all my devotionals, all things like that, and I work through it throughout the day. I've learned to pause before I go into situations and it allows me to be who God needs me to be in that space rather than thinking about me and my ego.
Omar: Got it. Absolutely. I totally got it. My next question was going to be how do you maintain your spiritual condition, the conscious contact with your higher power, but it looks like you already got that covered.
Laurie: You know what? Yes, I have. I was taught well. However, I get stuck. I get stuck a lot, and I'll be honest, I've been stuck the past couple days, and I'm fighting my way back to my higher power and it's ironic that I happen to be doing this particular talk with you on this day. God has a reason for everything. There's a page in the Big Book that I live out of. I'll say, "This is really how I live out of," page 417, and it talks about acceptance. Acceptance is the answer to all our problems. There are no mistakes in God's world. You know, this alcoholic will resist reading that page and keep herself miserable for a good 48 hours and then finally I'll just say, "You know what? I'm just going to read the page," and everything goes. The spirit comes back. I'm still rebellious. 7 years sober and I'm still rebellious, so I just say to myself, "Laurie, keep coming back."