Fourth Anniversary of blogging

Four years ago today I started this blog:

Hi, I’m Paul, and I’m an alcoholic!

No retrospective or reflections on the experience, except that it has been an interesting and feature-packed 4 years, with its share of major ups (I got married! w00t! w00t!! w00t!!! and I moved this blog to its own domain with the help of my second-greatest Internet find: Bro Jer.) and downs (some lost or missing friendships).

I am writing up a sort of review of recovery blogs by Catholics. If you know of any, please email me through the blog or post the link in the comments. (All comments are moderated, now, so be patient and I’ll get to them when I can.)

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!!)

Language for edification

Ran across this in a friend’s blog:

Ephesians 4:29: “No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear.”

(Via USCCB.)

I post this here as I can be rather profane in my personal speech, and aside from offending and hurting my wife, this also makes me somewhat of a hypocrite. I know that we all basically are, but just the same: if we profess the Gospel in word and deed, the same mouth that utters the Gospel should not also have filth spring forth from it. We should care that a lot of what issues forth from our lips should not cause people to doubt the truth or sincerity of the things we mean to say to assist people in their conversion.

This relates to the scope of this blog inasmuch as we alcoholics have many character defects to eliminate, some tougher and more durable than others. We must persevere in ridding ourselves of them, by whatever means we have at our disposal.

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 re-launches!

Not that it was offline, but this post announces that starting today, this address is the new “official” home of “Sober Catholic.”

I will still post concurrently at the old site, but only through the end of the month, if that long.

If you subscribed via email or through a feed service, you should find those functions along the righthand sidebar. Pretty much any way you subscribed before is available here. Also, if you have a blog which listed the old site, please change it to this address at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your support. If I have not reciprocated by linking your blog, send me an email.

This site contains all of the original site’s blogposts and maybe 90% of the comments. It also has all of the links of the old, minus a few defunct ones.

There are a few more things that I have to complete here, namely registering this site with blog directories and so forth, but in essence whatever was at the old site is now here. I have yet to figure out how to upload photos and videos, but I’ll figure that out eventually. I know people who can assist. They know who they are. 🙂

So, with that said, welcome, and I should be here for years and years, God willing.

An attitude of gratitude is greatly extended to BroJer, of Bro Jer’s Blog for his kindness and generosity in helping out this endeavor. I know I’m cramping his style by saying such nice things about him, so: “Mwuahahahahahahahahaha!!!!”

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 has moved here!

Note: this is just a copy of the post from the original blog, I included it here just because I wanted to.

Quick on the heels of Catholic Recovery relocating to its own domain at Recovery for Christ I am announcing that Sober Catholic will be moving to a new location too.

After using Blogger and being hosted by Google on their Blogspot servers for over 3 1/2 years, I finally got my own domain name and a new host. I will also be using WordPress for templates and some blog administration.

I have no issues with Blogger or even Google. The opportunity arose for me to get a web address for this blog and I took it. Therefore I decided to use a different blogging service that fits in well with my new host. There is a steeper learner curve (for me, at least) with WordPress, but they offer more flexibility for site design and functions. Having my own host and my own domain frees me from the fear that someone can “flag” my blog for spam or “offensiveness” if they don’t like what I write. It has never happened to me, but there is always a first time. From what I’ve heard from other bloggers, it can be difficult (as in time-consuming) to convince a free hoster that your blog isn’t a spam or a porn site.

I will give all readers plenty of notice before ceasing to post to this blog. All posts and most comments have already been exported to the new blog. All I have to do is work on getting the blogrolls and link lists up and running.

I will continue to post both here and at the new location, which is here, or if the link isn’t viewable, go to https://www.sobercatholic.com . With my Mac’s blog editor I can post to both sites almost at once. I will keep doing this until I am certain that most readers know of the new web address.

So, please change your bookmarks to this, or https://www.sobercatholic.com . You can already subscribe to new posts and comments at the new site (upper right corner). I hope that by the end of the month the transition will be complete and I can stop posting here.

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!!)

Catholic Recovery will move the week of July 25, 2010

Just a message to all that Catholic Recovery will be moving to its new location during the week of July 25th.

I will actually try and transfer everything on Tuesday, July 27th. I have Tuesday through Saturday off from work, and except for some out-of-town guests visiting, I can devote those 5 days to making the move and doing whatever follow-up is necessary. This is just in case anything goes wrong or members need someone around to answer questions.

I also have planned another 5 days off the week of August 1st (again, Tuesday through Saturday). My vacation for that week hasn’t been approved as of yet, but probably will. So there will be another almost full week to devote to tending to the new home.

Hope to see you all there next week!

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!!)

More on Mercy

In a previous post on Mercy I wrote about the devotion known as Divine Mercy. Although I had written about it before (see the “Divine Mercy” labels in the right-hand sidebar) it serves as a sort of formal introduction to a definitive theme for this blog.

This post relates my personal introduction to Divine Mercy, and why I think it is critical to Catholic alcoholics and addicts.

I had drifted away from the Catholic Church in 1987 thinking that religion was just human nonsense designed by the powerful to control people. I never doubted or disbelieved in God’s existence, as I’ve always regarded atheism as a supremely irrational and stupid human notion. I did feel nevertheless that religion was pointless. Anyway, to make a long story short, I drank to excess, abused it, and ended up returning to live with my Mom for 10 years. Originally I was to be her caregiver (my alcoholism was manageable), but for a while I was the person being cared for. (See also Drunkalogue.) My Mom watched EWTN a lot. Aside from the Daily Mass, from which I got a daily injection of Truth and sensibility from the sermons) she also watched the “Chaplet of Divine Mercy” each morning. She eventually taught it to me, particularly around Divine Mercy Sunday.

I think it was her daily praying of the Chaplet that brought me back into the Church. It also was, and continues through this day, to be a source of healing and mercy.

This is important to us Catholic alcoholics and addicts. We are so broken and wounded from our past. For many the past is just too much and they never fully escape the its hauntings.

The all-encompassing nature of Divine Mercy heals our souls and enables us to draw upon the endless reservoir of God’s Mercy. It is a tremendous aid in our spiritual growth and progress. It led me back into the Catholic Church, with Her fullness of the Gospel Truth and the sacramental life and graces. It helps you to achieve a more fuller life.

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!!)

Back Online!

My Mac is back, and better than ever. Blogging shall return probably tomorrow, after I find stuff I hope is somewhere on my external hard drive.

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!!)

Offline temporarily

I will be offline for an indefinite period. My Mac is down and in need of some repair. I hope to be back up and running within a week, God willing.

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!!)

Divine Mercy

Off and on during the past year or so I had been considering beginning another blogging venture writing about Divine Mercy at work in my life and in the world about me. I would post personal observations and excerpts from St. Faustina’s Diary with meditations in addition to examples of Divine Mercy in the Bible. I was also going to write about the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

I am not going to do that as I am afraid that I will be spreading myself too thin. Also, much of what I would be writing can be applied to this blog, as recovery from addictions is most definitely an example of Divine Mercy, as well as my personal response to its workings in my soul. And so I will be doing that, writing about Divine Mercy, especially during Lent as the Feast of Divine Mercy is the Sunday after Easter.

If you do not know what I am talking about or why I capitalize “Divine Mercy”, please check out the links under the sidebar header under… “Divine Mercy”.

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!!)

Discontinuing most advertising on Sober Catholic

No one has ever commented or emailed displeasure with the Google AdSense advertising that I had been running on this blog, but nevertheless I have decided to discontinue it for a variety of reasons.

One: I wasn’t making any money off of it. Less than $20 in the past year. There is a correlation between traffic and ad clicking, and while I have decent readership, I guess hardly anyone was clicking on the ads. This is fine as I rarely do that myself on other people’s blogs.

Two: the ads may have been misleading or offensive. Quite often they were about alcohol and addiction treatment program (obviously, they were generated based on post content) or on something “Catholic-y”. The misleading aspect is that the ads may have offered information opposed to the goals of this blog, and the offensive aspect may be that some of the “Catholic-y” ads may have been created by anti-Catholic bigots. Quite often this is done by bigots masquerading as Catholics to draw people away from the True Faith.

Anyway, I in general dislike advertising. I will not get rid of it entirely, but will only run ads that I know are not contrary to the Faith and therefore I have more control of.

I may get some sort of PayPal thingy where readers can donate money if they like what they read, but that will be later on when I think about it more.

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!!)