Category Archives: Me

Where have they taken my Lord?

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I’m off to morning Mass in a half hour or so, and then I will stay afterwards in our parish’s Adoration Chapel and adore Jesus, truly Present in the host exposed in the monstrance. He had been reposed since last Wednesday evening, so I have been unable to visit and see Him.

I feel a touch of separation anxiety; although I went to the Good Friday services and received Him in Communion, as well as on Easter Sunday, just spending time with His presence for as long as you want has a special feeling. I can go essentially whenever I want and stay as long as I need.

But I have been unable to do that. I was a bit annoyed that He was reposed until today; I figured He’d be exposed once again come Easter Sunday afternoon, but alas He wasn’t. I kind of got the feeling the Eleven Apostles and the women felt over the course of the days since His death until His Resurrection.

“Where is He? Where have you taken my Lord? Tell me, and I will go get Him,” said Mary Magdalene upon seeing the open tomb and no body there.

You really know how much you miss and need something when you can’t get it.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Second Anniversary of Mother Angelica’s Death

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Today, March 27, 2018 is the second anniversary of the death of Mother Angelica. She is best known as the foundress of EWTN.

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She has grown in importance for me. I have read both of her biographies written by Raymond Arroyo and have read (and studied) several of her books. I highly recommend getting Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality; Mother Angelica’s Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures; and The Prayers and Personal Devotions of Mother Angelica. All are available through EWTN Publishing. They are a wealth of spiritual wisdom. The treasures contained within are gems you can mine for years to come. Mother Angelica was a soul who connected with those who were on the margins, downtrodden, beaten by life. In general, people who were broken, wounded, hurt and lost. Sound familiar? The spiritual guidance contained in those three books can greatly help you get through anything. (I should do an individual book review on each. Hmmm…)

I would place them on a par with the Diary of St. Faustina Kowalska, “Divine Mercy in My Soul” for your deep spiritual enrichment.

More on Mother at EWTN’s Mother Angelica Page.

The Church has a regulation that people have to be deceased for 5 years before their process for beatification and canonization can begin. We have just three years now to wait! Hopefully it won’t take too long after…

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Lenten blogging check-in

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Quickie Lenten blogging check-in: I’ve been busy with a lot of reading recently. I have at long last finished reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. By this I mean having a completed a run-through from start to finish; prior to this I’ve read sections of it when I needed to know something. I don’t know how much of it I had read in that manner, but I wanted to make sure that the entire volume had been ingested by me and thus the reading from beginning to end. If you haven’t done this, I urge you to. Even if it is just as a daily devotional: the CCC is an awesome book, we all need a daily dose of Truth and it has it, along with your Catholic Bible.

I feel like an item has been checked off my “bucket list.”

I’ve also been getting continuing with reading some of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s writings; partly because it’s a long-term reading project I had set aside and I missed them, and I have to look up stuff to help a buddy get over a “stumbling block” about some of St. Max’s teachings.

Speaking of reading: I have also finally finished the complete, unabridged version of “The Mystical City of God,” by Ven. Mary of Jesus of Agreda. It is a 2,700 page (+/- ~100ish pages) history or biography of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s epic. I may blog about it sometime.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this as a sort of “check-in;” I pray daily about blogging and since Sunday I’ve been told to read 😉 I do have a number of posts in draft form and hope to push a few of them out over the next week, including reviews of two books on spiritual growth and development that I really think you all should get…

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Consecration of Sober Catholic to Mary

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This blog has a new patron. As today is February 11th, traditionally the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (and the World Day of the Sick), I have decided to consecrate Sober Catholic to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I have mentioned previously (most recently today, in Our Lady of Lourdes/World Day of the Sick) that it is my belief that Mary ‘inspired’ me to start this. Perhaps that was a fruit of my own consecration to her on October 7, 2002 through St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Militia of the Immaculate (see that earlier link). One of the things about consecrating yourself to Mary is that she uses you to bring others to Jesus through her. By whatever means that you have, she uses. Your intellect, memory, will, skills and talents; all of these then belong to her for her to use in saving souls. St. Maximilian Kolbe often said it was like being a paintbrush in an artist’s hands. It paints when the artist selects it, remains at rest when not needed. It may have painted a masterpiece, but it was the artist who directed it.

It may seem like an arrogant assumption that the Mother of God inspired me to start blogging about the Catholic Faith and the rich resources it offers people in recovery. If so, then this blog will eventually cease and be forgotten. If not, then it continue on until Heaven decides it’s time… But since it’s been 11 years, and I’m still doing it, though many times I wanted to quit, but haven’t…

So I keep trudging on.

I have been reading quite a lot of Marian spirituality and theology over the past few years. I have a greater appreciation for my membership in the M.I. and have read copious amounts of St. Maximilian’s writings as well as numerous texts related to his Marian spirituality. I have learned many things, some of which I shall try and share with you over time. I am no longer astonished at the importance that the Catholic Church has made of the Blessed Mother. This may seem contradictory: on the one hand I have always taken for granted her role in the Church, namely the importance ascribed to her by virtue of her selection by God the Father as the means by which the Incarnation would take place and her role as Mother of the Church and our Mother; and on the other hand my digging into the theology and spirituality (all of the Marian Dogmas) of all this begats the astonishment. So, “astonishment” as in not from shock at all the glories attributed to her, but rather the significance of them all. It’s like the difference between knowing the ‘whats’ of a thing and then learning the ‘whys.’ (As a digression: Growing up ‘raised in the Faith’ I knew many of the ‘whats’ of the Faith, but few of the ‘whys.’ Hence my leaving of the Church for 15 years. Parents and directors of religious education, as well as RCIA instructors take heed; it isn’t enough to educate others on ‘what’ the Church teaches, but also ‘why’ She teaches what She does.)

And so we come to the consecration. In one of my recent readings I was reminded that as we are created by God, He is our first beginning and our last end; everything we have were given by Him, and thus everything we do and the results are His. We do the best we can and leave the results to Him. And so, we all do have a mission. Mulling this over, and being mindful of the possible Marian inspiration of this blog, I came to the conclusion that rather than merely assuming that my personal consecration to the Virgin Mary covers this blog also (since it is something I run, and therefore a tool of hers to use by means of me,) I should in some way “give it back” to her; in doing so I feel a greater responsibility in making it work.

You see, although Our Lady may have inspired it, it has been my will most of the time to blog. I will blog about this or that, I won’t blog for now, I will… I will… I will… I will… She gave me the idea and I took it over. Although oftentimes I felt inspired to “get out of myself” and blog when I didn’t feel like it, and many times while composing a post I felt the words coming from …somewhere…; still, my will decided things most times.

So, no longer will it be ‘my will be done,’ but rather ‘her will be done;’ and as her will is always perfectly conformed to His will…

In consecrating this blog to Mary I will daily pray about it; every morning I will add this apostolate to my prayer intentions. Although I have prayed for the success of this blog in the past, I never made it a daily habit. In praying about it I will hopefully be receptive to any ‘inspirations’ of what to blog about. Daily Mass readings, something I’ve read here or there, something a personal nature, whatever.

So, Mama Mary, this thing is yours. Any ‘productivity’ and success, such as souls saved, sobriety achieved or maintained, lost sheep brought back to Holy Mother Church, are yours. Perhaps I will even get to writing some more Sober Catholic Books! Failures are all mine.

Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as per St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe and tweaked a bit by me:

O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, ‘Paulcoholic’, a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, but in particular this blog, SoberCatholic.com, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you.

If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and, “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter, you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

V. Allow me to praise you, O sacred Virgin.

R. Give me strength against your enemies.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Our Lady of Lourdes/World Day of the Sick

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This is a story about a Marian feast day, its significance; a saint and what he did with it; and what all this meant for yours truly.

Today is February 11th, the 160th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto near Lourdes, France in 1858.

The apparition was significant in several respects: the most important was that Our Lady identified herself with the words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Not that she was “immaculately conceived,” but rather she was the essence of the immaculate conception. As St. Maximilian Kolbe later pointed out (this is a paraphrase) “To be white is one thing, to be whiteness is another.”

For another, it seemed as if Heaven was endorsing the definition of the Dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854 by Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus:

“We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.”

And one more: that Mary’s self-identification as the Immaculate Conception was utterly fascinating and mysterious to St. Maximilian Kolbe, who meditated and pondered on it his entire life. It inspired his “Militia of the Immaculata” and associated media enterprises and friaries.

I discovered St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Militia of the Immaculata in 2002, after I had sobered up sufficiently to search online for what the Catholic Church has to offer me in recovery. As I had stated in my Reversion story, “I had been going to AA meetings, but I knew early on that the brand of spirituality offered there was not going to do the job.” And so I explored the religion of my childhood and never looked back. That St. Max was a patron of addicts helped. When I learned that, I explored more about him.

So I found out about St. Max and the M.I. The M.I. calls for consecrating oneself to the Blessed Mother as her “possession and property” so she can “make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases” her. That she will use me as “a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your  (note: God’s) glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.” I figured if that’s true (and I never doubted the Blessed Mother) then this may help in my recovery. I doubt that remaining a drunk would be of use to her.

And so on October 7, 2002, on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, I gave myself to Mother Mary. I joined the M.I. which “is a universal and international public Association of the faithful, erected by the Holy See. The MI was founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, OFMConv., in 1917, is open to Catholics, of all walks of life, and encourages all people of good will to develop a trusting relationship with Our Lady. The aim of the MI is to win the whole world for Christ through the Immaculata, Mother of God and of the Church.

“The MI is a global vision of Catholic life under a new form, consisting in the bond with the Immaculata, our universal Mediatrix before Jesus.” -St. Maximilian Kolbe.

The MI offers programs that:

-Provide formation in the teachings of the Catholic Church
-Foster love for Jesus in the Eucharist and for the Sacramental life
-Promote a deep understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in the plan of Salvation and of the gift of consecration to her in the spirit of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
-Ignite with the zeal to become generous instruments of evangelization in one’s own environment, giving witness to the Truth and promoting the sacredness of human life.

M.I. members, mindful of their call to evangelize, strive to give witness to the Faith everywhere. They seek to reach out to their own families, friends, co-workers, fellow parishioners, the sick and elderly, youth, adults, and whomever they meet, in order to lead every individual with Mary to Christ, Our Savior and Our Hope.

(Above quote courtesy of M.I. You can also visit that link to learn more about the MI and St. Maximilian Kolbe, along with possibly joining yourself!)

I think Mary started using me right afterwards. She strengthened me against what I perceived as attacks against my Faith in my AA Home Group as well as giving me the courage to stop attending meetings regularly in 2004. Not that I am advocating everyone should stop going to meetings; on the contrary, if you enjoy and need regular meeting attendance, by all means do it. It just wasn’t for me.

Once I drifted from AA, I began looking into what recovery resources the Church offers. You can read about that here: “About this blog.” After a whle I just decided to start Sober Catholic; I mentioned in some earlier post that I believe the Blessed Virgin Mary “inspired” me to do it. A “fruit,” if you will, of of my M.I. Consecration. Not that I received any interior locution or some such thing, just a desire that since no one else was doing this at the time, I might as well. I doubt I’d have the courage on my own.

So there’s the story: A apparition of the Blessed Mother; a saint’s taking that apparition and message and developing it; and a marginal ex-drunk finding a personal mission in it – Trudging the Road of Happy Destiny and taking whoever bothers to read this stuff along with him.

So that’s that! The sanctuary or Our Lady of Lourdes in France is famous for miraculous healings wrought there. Because of that, Pope St. John Paul II also declared today to be the “World Day of the Sick” in 1993. We alcoholics, even though we may be sober, are still “sick.”

(To be continued…)

(You can learn more about Lourdes at these sites: EWTN Lourdes and Official Sanctuary Site in Lourdes, France.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Sober Catholic named a “Top ‘Sober Living’ Blog!

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I received an email last week from Anuj Agarwal, the founder of FeedSpot, a blog feed service. According to their panel, Sober Catholic is one of the Top 60 “Living Sober” Blogs!!! (I came in at Number 11!)

Living Sober Blogs

Thank you so much, I am honored by the recognotion. Congratulations are also in order for my “sister” Number 9 over at Catholic Alcoholic, she pulled in at No. 33!

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Slight change in direction for Sober Catholic

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In about a week I will commemorate the twelfth anniversary of my Mom’s death. One of the impacts of her dying and eventual death has been my increasing interest in Catholic teaching on the afterlife and specifically a growing devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. When I started Sober Catholic almost eleven years ago I also started a “sister” blog to discuss issues on Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell, which are the called the “Four Last Things” in the Church. Hence, that was the blog’s name (“4LT” for short.).

4LT was a nice little blog, kind of intimate as I was probably one of a half-dozen readers. 😉 Last year I started thinking about whether it was necessary; that any posts there should be on here as “death and dying” and the afterlife are topics rarely discussed in recovery blogs or meetings. I thought that maybe they should be showcased in their own blog given how queasy some people feel about such things.

Excerpts from its first post:

There are four unalterable, unavoidable truths that every human must eventually face.

You will die.

You will be judged.

You will be received into Heaven or…

… your life will condemn you to Hell.

Period. No wishful thinking will alter the above truths. They are expressly laid out in the Bible and they cannot be avoided.

“But I’m not Christian…” Yeah, so what? Non-Christian religions may have much truth in them and they may lead people to God, but only in Judeo-Christianity has God revealed Himself to us and wrote a roadmap to the afterlife and salvation in the Bible. You will be judged for what you are responsible for (more on that in a later post).

Anyway, my name is Paul, and I am an alcoholic who found sobriety from drink in the Twelve Steps of a recovery program but discovered sustained sobriety in the Catholic Church. In the course of my recovery, I thought more deeply than most other 12-Steppers of my acquaintance on the eternal verities. Death. Judgement. Heaven. Hell. The four unavoidables.

I’ve rarely heard these topics brought up in recovery meetings, except that some members presumed that they’ve already experienced Hell or went through Purgatory on Earth as a consequence of their drinking. I understood that as an expression of suffering, but I wondered about the real places , or whatever they are. That will be explored in this blog…

…another reason why I am starting this blog is that one thing I’ve heard in 12 Step meetings is the basic conviction or feeling that once you’ve stopped drinking, that’s it. You’ve run the race and you’re “in”. That’s always bothered me. Just not drinking today isn’t enough. You may still sin (that is, offend God), and perhaps even mortally sin. There are whole other ways to screw up your life besides drinking. You may still do those. Hopefully this blog will make you aware of that and start thinking beyond “just not drinking.”

However, because I rarely posted (there are 150 or so posts, and many are reblogs from prior years) there doesn’t seem to be much of a point. I think discussion of the Four Last Things is important for Catholics and anyone in recovery, but that blog had little exposure and thus its purpose was defeated. I never planned to blog on 4LT as much as on Sober Catholic, but I had hoped to much more often than I did. And so I have decided that further posts on death and the afterlife will be here (mostly around November).

The fact that I had debated this nearly a year ago and am only now doing something about it is further proof of 4LT’s “demise” in my mind. Read: The Future of the ‘Four Last Things’ Blog

The plan for 4LT’s closure will be different from what I envisioned in that post. I will not import 4LT’s posts into Sober Catholic; that won’t increase their exposure unless you explored the Categories and discovered a bunch of new ones. They will be edited for content and any needed updating and republished here (with an appropriate disclosure, just in case you’re one of 4LT’s six readers and would be wondering where you read that before 🙂 . Any that are of a “non-recovery” value will be appear on In Exile and thus giving it some bloglife.

One thing I will NOT do is go into endless debates on Purgatory, which seemed to crop up in 4LT’s comments section and are repetitious. I will hopefully post something on the Church’s teaching on that and be done with it. Doubters can read it and if it isn’t enough may politely ask a few more questions or make some more points; otherwise they can follow links to more information and pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit. Polite inquiry and dialogue I’m OK with; my temperament doesn’t jibe with what passes for “debate” or “dialogue” nowadays.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

100th Anniversary of the founding of the Militia of the Immaculata

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Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Militia of the Immaculata, an evangelization apostolate of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Established on the evening of October 16, 1917 at the Conventual Franciscan’s College in Rome by St. Maximilian and six of his fellow students, its goal is to “win the whole world for Christ through the Immaculata, Mother of God and of the Church.”

The original aim of the MI was “To pursue the conversion to God of all people, be they sinners, or non-Catholics, or unbelievers, in particular the freemasons; and that all become saints, under the patronage and through the mediation of the Immaculate Virgin.

Kolbe was inspired to “do something” after a violent anti-Catholic demonstration by the Freemasons on Rome in early 1917, hence the original reference to the freemasons.

It has since spread throughout the world. One joins after a period of prayer and meditation on the charism of the MI. You then consecrate yourself to the Blessed Mother under the formula devised by St. Maximilian. His method is similar to the consecration of St. Louis DeMontfort. One typically selects a feast day associated with the Blessed Mother in order to join with however many others are consecrating themselves, and as a way of honoring Mary. The Act of Consecration is as follows:

“O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, (name), a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you.

If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and, “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter, you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

V. Allow me to praise you, O sacred Virgin.

R. Give me strength against your enemies.”

The Daily Renewal of Total Consecration is:

“Immaculata, Queen and Mother of the Church, I renew
my consecration to you this day and for always, so that you
may use me for the coming of the Kingdom of Jesus in
the whole world. To this end I offer you all my prayers,
actions and sacrifices of this day.”

I have been a member of the MI since 2002; I recently celebrated my 15th anniversary of consecration to Mary this past October 7th, having selected the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary as my day to enroll.

Although the Militia of the Immaculata is not a recovery organization by any means, I do credit my consecration with keeping myself sober when AA was insufficient. I have always said here on “Sober Catholic” that my Catholic Faith has been primarily responsible for my sobriety, with AA and the Twelve Steps providing the focus for drinking-specific issues and root causes. But for spirituality and the growth and depth of my maturing relationship with my “Higher Power” (Jesus), the enduring basis for sobriety, I credit the Faith. And although I may not have realized it at the time, my consecration to the Blessed Mother quite possibly gave me the strength to deal with things that AA couldn’t. Putting yourself in the hands of Mary for her to use by whatever means she wishes to bring about a “Civilization of Love,” you’re pretty much guaranteed of a solid sobriety. Not that I haven’t on occasion “felt thirsty,” but the feeling withers quickly.

I do think that “Sober Catholic” is a direct result of inspiration from Mary. This is all subjective, of course. But that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Quotes and other information courtesy of Militia of the Immaculata in the USA. When you visit that site, you’ll discover plenty of information on the history and founding of the MI, including how to enroll and the preparation needed, as well as material on the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

If you’re not in the USA, go here: MI International and you can locate information for your country.

I have also blogged about St. Maximilian Kolbe numerous times: St. Maximilian Kolbe post archives on Sober Catholic.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

One curious phenomenon…

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I’ve taken to regular repeat readings and studies of AA’s “Big Book” and “12 and 12.” Although my Catholicism takes precedence in my recovery, Twelve Step literature – especially the main reference works, do provide major assistance in dealing with life issues and such.

I have noticed one curious phenomenon every time since I last read the books. New insights are gleaned and I’ve notice things I missed previously, or I understand them in a new way. It is like “as if” a passage has been “rewritten,” or otherwise is substantially different than it was before. This same phenomenon occurs when reading the Bible. Others have noticed this, too.

I’m told that this is because you have made substantial “spiritual progress” since previous readings. You are different than before, and it shows in your understanding of the text.

So, go back and reread, better yet study, the basic texts of your recovery program. And obviously, keep a Catholic Bible handy (and looking well-read)!

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Fifteenth Sober Anniversary: Went outside to get outside (of myself)

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Today I celebrated my 15th Anniversary of getting sober. I celebrated it in good sober Catholic fashion: I went to Mass, prayed a lot this morning and as it was my day off and the weather was nice spent a lot if it outdoors. I practiced gratitude for a (finally) working lawn mower by getting caught up with the lawn mowing, and “went outside to get outside” of myself by getting the garden ready for planting. The fences needed attention (posts and chicken wire fencing) and I will finish that up when I get a few new posts to replace some old ones (destined for compost pile support-duty.) I also hoed up the few weeds and other things growing where they aren’t supposed to. I will have a nice compost heap going by the end of the month.

What I wrote last year on my anniversary is interesting.

Also, today is the feast of St. Rita of Cascia

That’s all! I hope your day was good one as you Trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)