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Too Young for the Truth?

Sean learns more about the man he’s named for than the author intended at this young age. All things considered, he took it well.

Mood music for this post: “Leslie Anne Levine” from The Decemberists:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml0VI8VZO2U&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Sean and Duncan were fighting in the bathtub. I can’t remember what started it, or what sparked this angry comment from Sean: “I’d rather commit suicide than apologize [for whatever he did].”  I punished him by making him go to bed a half hour early. Then I did something unexpected. I told him why that word makes my skin crawl.

I know Sean didn’t mean the statement literally. He was pissed off and wanted to land a verbal crusher, as kids do.

In that split-second where Sean was melting down over his punishment, I told him statements like the one he made will get him in trouble every time.

“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal,” he said.

And then I told him that the man we named him for had taken his life. That’s a lot for a 9 year old to hear, and I wasn’t going to tell him until he was much older. It just sort of fell out of my mouth.

Sean gave me an intense stare, and his face went from red to white. His lower lip trembled. I felt 1,000 kinds of awful. I started thinking about how this might scar him for life, and how I always promised God that as a parent I would never do something to scar my kids.

I started to backtrack. I told Sean the man he was named for was a great man, and that he had a mental illness that unhinges the sufferer’s ability to make sane, rational decisions. I told him he should be proud of his name, and that I was proud of him.

He recovered pretty quickly, and seemed to understand. I often forget this boy is smart beyond his years, and I don’t always give him credit for being able to process weighty subjects.

Still, I always figured I’d wait until he was much older to tell him.

After Sean went to bed, I went upstairs to the loft where Erin and I have our desks. She was working late again on a freelance editing project. I told her what happened, thinking she wouldn’t be all that happy with me. But her reaction was pretty reasoned and calm. In all likelihood, she said, he wouldn’t be scarred from the knowledge. Besides, she added, young or not, he needed to feel awful about what he had said so he’ll think twice before saying it again.

Time will tell.

I’ve said before that Sean Brenner shares some of Sean Marley’s traits, particularly that deep intellect, and that I was going to be damn sure to watch for signs of the darker traits.

To that end, perhaps all this was necessary.

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We’re in This Together Now: Gratitude List, Part 2

The author realizes it’s not about what you do, but who you are.

Mood music for this post: “We’re in This Together” by Nine Inch Nails:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BfvPjsXXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I used to have stupid ideas about how to measure a person’s worth. And when I say stupid, I mean STUPID. In my warped mind, you were nobody if you didn’t have a big important career. Then I slowly learned that it’s the overachievers like me that cause the most trouble.

It’s a not-so-surprising tick in the brain for someone with OCD and other flavors of mental illness: You feel like you have to do something big to prove your worth as a human being. In my case, it was to become a big journalist.

The guys who filled boxes with shoe orders in my father’s warehouse, the old high school chum who went on to manage a drug store; the other friend who can never seem to settle into a job and stay there: I always thought I was bigger than they were.

I really used to think this way. It took years of therapy and finding my Faith to realize what an asshole I can be.

It’s a funny thing OCD does to you: Your mind spins with worry, fear and anxiety that in turn leads to episodes of depression and a life of addictive behavior.

I’ve always carried a huge ego. I’m the first to admit that humility isn’t one of my strong suits. I’m working on it, because as a Christian that’s what I need to do. I’ve always been a better talker than listener. I still need to work on that.

Achieving big things is one of the ways we try to fill in that hole that’s always dogging us.  In my profession, getting access to the major power players of information security is a rush. I feel like I am somebody as a result. When I don’t make it to a big security conference, the wheels in my head start spinning. I start to worry that by not being there, I become irrelevant.

When I make it someplace and score, like the time I was able to corner Bob Woodward of Washington Post/Watergate fame at a conference in Florida four years ago, I can be insufferable for months. In that encounter, Woodward was there to deliver a keynote on the state of security. His forte was the larger war on terror and how the Bush White House was waging it. He needed to bone up on the IT aspect and started asking me about antivirus and firewalls, and whether those things really work. Later, during the Q&A part of his keynote, when someone asked him a cybersecurity question, he mentioned that he had talked to a fellow earlier (me) who mentioned that the emerging trend was toward a quiet, sneaky brand of attack. My ego boiled and rose. I told EVERYBODY about it.

Today, when I write what I think is a good article, I promote it nonstop. That’s part of my job, of course. If you don’t promote it no one will read it. But I do it with an uber-sized dose of zeal. I’m sure more than a few people on Facebook have unfriended me because of it, and I’m fine with that.

God has a funny way of teaching me a lesson. Eleven years ago my big dream was to be an editor at The Eagle-Tribune. I got there, but most of my tenure was marred by a deepening mental illness. To top it off, the environment there is not good for someone who needs constant praise to feel like he’s a real human being. It could be a viper pit. In hindsight, I worked with great people. But back then, I was looking for anyone I could blame for my unhappiness so I wouldn’t have to face that most of the blame was mine.

I’ve learned that it’s not what we do that makes or breaks us. it’s WHO we are. Take Gretchen Putnam, managing editor of The Eagle-Tribune. The woman led the team that won a Pulitzer Prize. But when I think of her, I think more about what a great Mom she is to her three children. My wife’s talents as an editor, organizer and blogger tower over my own skills. But when I think of her, which is pretty much all day, every day, I think of the woman who glued me together when I was falling apart and who deserves most of the credit for the compassion and intelligence my sons have developed.

My Father-In-Law has been a truck driver all his life. I used to think of that as a lesser profession. But he raised four beautiful daughters and has been there for his family through thick and thin. The man has a heart like no other. My Mother-in-Law works at McDonald’s and is shy to the core, but she has a silent peace about her that just calms you down in her presence. She doesn’t have to say anything to put you at ease.

Then there’s my cousin Melanie. I’ve teased her a lot over the years because she told me she had no real ambition to do anything but watch TV her whole life. But here’s the thing: She’s been there for everyone in her family. She doesn’t judge you. And she will always make you laugh — even if it’s at her own expense. To be honest, I don’t care what she does for a living. She never needed a career to be a force on this Earth and make a difference.

As for the guys in my Dad’s warehouse, they toil away for many hours a day on tasks I always thought were beneath me. But they always understood what I could never grasp as a 19-year-old punk: That their Faith and family were priority one. They were providing for wives and children who in some cases were still in their home countries. That’s all that mattered.

All these people figured out the key to Heaven long before I did. I’m still not sure I’ve earned my keep in that department.

But this much I do know: They have all taught me something about myself and about what it takes to be a better person. We’re all in this life together, and helping each other is what counts.

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Time to End This Sentimental Journey?

The author realizes it’s time to let some things go.

I’ve been making frequent visits to my father’s warehouse in Saugus, Mass., lately, digging through a bunch of boxes jammed into a crevice behind many pallets piled high with more boxes. The boxes I’ve been rummaging through are 15-20 years old, and some of them break apart at the slightest touch.

I’ve been hunting for my old notebooks from the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ones I filled with poems and lyrics I’d eventually use in the band Skeptic Slang. I figured I’d be lucky to find at least one notebook, and if I was really lucky I’d find one of our old recordings.

This hunt began a couple months ago, the day I rummaged through my grandfather’s old footlocker, which I’ve kept over the years and filled with all kinds of stuff. Among my finds:
A poem my old friend Joy — Sean Marley’s widow — wrote about me. Reading it brought on a feeling of loss, because she dropped out of my life after his death.

That should have been my first clue to stop looking for material things from the past, and yet I persisted.

I recently reconnected with Joy, which probably accelerated my drive to find the notebooks. If she could come back into my life so soon after I found that poem, what other shards of that old life could I reconnect and glue back together?

Two storage dives later, I haven’t found the notebooks. But I found some other, interesting things, including a ton of old pictures of my great-grandmother, who was a major force in my younger life, along with pictures of my late brother, Michael.

During yesterday’s rummage fest, I found an old inhaler of Granny’s that had to be some 30 years old. When I pressed down on it, spray still came out.

Yesterday, as I emerged from the pile covered in dust, frustrated that I had failed to find the notebooks, a feeling came over me. Why, I wondered, was I trying so hard to find these things? The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.

I realized this was becoming an obsession — a typical OCD-driven pursuit. My life has been pretty damn good in more recent years. I’ve experienced sanity, clarity and joy I never thought possible a decade ago. So what the fuck was I looking for? Clearly, I’m still trying to fill a hole in my soul. But I thought I’d already stitched that hole shut. I suppose the lesson here is that you never fill the hole completely, you just learn to manage it and keep it from sucking in all other life.

This obsession isn’t just about MY notebooks. Sean Marley kept journals, and I’ve been yearning to look through his last couple years of entries. Something in me needs to see what, if anything, he had to say about his deepening depression and whether or not there was anything I could have done to steer him to the light.

I don’t think I’ll ever see the inside of those journals, because I really have no right to see them. They’re in Joy’s possession, and while I thought about asking if I could see them, I’ve decided not to. I have no right to see them. None of my business. Period. Besides, as my friend Mary put it, seeing those journals won’t change a thing about the past or the direction life took. And since that direction has been a good one, why would I want to change it anyway?

I’m also done looking for those notebooks.

What if I found all those lyrics? I’m never going to sing them again. And they won’t fill the hole — whatever that hole is — either.

I mentioned all this to Erin last night, and she pointed out that we humans are the sentimental sort. While finding old things won’t change anything, there’s still the sentimental value.

There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself. But I’ve decided it’s time to let go.

That doesn’t mean I never want to see the notebooks again, but I’m done looking for them. if they turn up, great. But I don’t need them.

I don’t need to read Sean’s journals, either.

The reasons are simple:

–The brotherhood between me and Sean Marley was a defining thing in my life. As badly as it ended, we each got something important out of the friendship. I probably got more out of it than he did, because he helped me get past the rubble of childhood and come into my own. I’ve been told — and I’m starting to believe — that there was nothing I could have done differently that would have steered Sean down a better path. But I can honor his memory now by being a good Dad to the boy I named for him, and by using this blog to smash the stigma that keeps people with mental illness from getting the help they need.

— I’m chatting with Joy again, and that’s huge. I don’t need to bother her for the sake of my own craving for closure. Just having her back as a friend is good enough.

— I also remain friends with my former band mates, so why keep trying to rehash the creativity behind Skeptic Slang? What we had was good, but the music wasn’t meant to go on. It’s the friendships that were meant to go on.

— In the final analysis, God is going to keep pushing me in the direction I need to be in, and I learned long ago that messing with God’s will is futile, if not stupid altogether.

I’m just going to be myself and see what happens.

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How I Became the Easy Parent

Here’s a side of my recovery that the kids enjoy: I’m more of a push-over than I used to be.

Mood music for this post: “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” by The Runaways:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RTipAZuMRI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Back when my OCD was out of control, I craved order. When you have kids, order is impossible.

I was very big on sticking to routines. Brushing teeth and getting in pajamas by 6:30. Bed by 7:30. If it went later than that, I freaked out. That was my time to collapse on the couch in front of the TV.

I’m not sure when this stopped being important to me, but it did. Maybe it’s the Prozac. Maybe it’s the mental coping tools I use. Whatever the case, the chances of my kids running wild and burning the house down are greater than they were, say, six years ago.

I knew I had reached a turning point a couple years ago when one of the kids’ friends, Wolfgang, slept over. Right at the time they were supposed to be in bed, I dozed off on Sean’s bed while the three kids ran up and down the stairs chanting like Indians. I woke up an hour later to find them doing the same thing they were doing when I nodded off.

Then there was the time Sam and Grace White came over for a couple hours. I had to give Sam a time-out on the couch for reasons I can’t remember. I forgot about him and 20 minutes later he was staring at me with his lopsided grin.

“What?” I asked.

“Mr. Brenner (pronounced Bwenna),” Sam said. “Can I get up now?”

I used to panic when I had to get the kids ready for school and drive them there. It always came down to how I’d do my work and that, too.

Now it’s no big deal.

Go figure.

I think part of this is that my concept of rest and relaxation have changed. Having rigid control over what the kids do and when they do it is no longer as important as it used to be. I’m just happy to be spending time with them and just being together.

It’s one of the strange things that happened to me on the way to recovery: I started finding peace and relaxation in the very things that used to fill me with fear and spark anxiety attacks. [SeeFear Factor] Not the kid duties, but everything else in life that made me want to rush the kids to bed so I could enter my mental coma.

It used to be that relaxing meant holing myself up in the bedroom watching endless episodes of Star Trek. I watched a lot of the news, too, which instead of relaxing me would send my brain into an endless spin of worry about things happening at the far corners of the world.

Lying on the couch all weekend — sleeping for a lot of it — was relaxation.

Then Sunday night would arrive and I’d go into a deep depression about the tasks that awaited me the next day at work.

Before Sean and Duncan, the above was pretty much all I ever did.

Now the idea of doing nothing — even when I can — is repulsive to me.

I didn’t spend all that time on recovery so I could go lie on the couch. And besides, there’s never anything good on TV, anyway.

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What the hell? My Manson Obsession Resurfaces

Over the years, people have viewed my obsession over the Manson Murders as an oddity. How could I blame them?

The murders took the concept of gore and evil to new heights and dealt the hippie counterculture a body blow it never fully recovered from. Some will fight me on that point, but really — the 60s counterculture’s vision was never the same after Aug. 9, 1969.

So why am I bringing this up now and what does it have to do with the mission of this blog?

I made a new friend on Facebook yesterday: Scott Michaels, founder of Findadeath.com and one of the best experts on the Manson case around today.

He gives special “Helter Skelter” tours around L.A. of not just the murder sites themselves, but every location tied to the case, even those tied by a tiny thread, like one of the buildings Sharon Tate lived in years before her murder.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uizmSLifc7M&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

My interest in this case is an extension of my interest in history, because this WAS an important piece of American history. But I also remain fascinated as someone in recovery for OCD and addiction.

Manson fed the addictions of his followers and twisted wiring in their heads that was already mangled. Susan Atkins is a perfect example: She had a troubled past and was already mentally unhinged before Manson got his hands on her. He exploited his followers’ various levels of mental illness and addiction and turned some of them into killers.

Not all the Manson followers were mentally ill or addicted from a technical standpoint, but there were plenty of head cases to play around with.

Looking at my own past, when mental illness began to take hold in my early 20s and I was looking for SOMETHING bigger than me, I was a pretty good target for corrupting influences like this. Fortunately, the Manson-like influence never materialized and, even if he or she had, my moral compass was such that I would only take things so far.

I was lucky on many levels and eventually found God and my program of recovery. But in the back of my mind I know how weak I was in those days. Hell, I thought it was cool to wear a Manson shirt, which of course it wasn’t. Fortunately, I had more positive influences in my life than bad.

I’ve also been interested because Susan Atkins and Charles “Tex” Watson — the chief killer at the Tate and LaBianca residences — eventually turned on Manson and became Born-Again Christians. As a devout Catholic myself, I’ve always wondered about where the wall is between forgivable sin and the kind you never recover from. Would God truly let these people into His Kingdom after what they did, even if they repented? Everything I learned during my Catholic conversion says yes, and yet it’s still hard to swallow. I’ll find out the real truth someday.

Some of the Manson followers came from backgrounds most would consider normal. The last sort of folk you would ever consider capable of murder.

And yet they did what they did.

So yes, the combination of historical significance and the multitude of mental illness case studies have kept me fascinated over the years.

I’m glad I’m now in touch with Michaels and who knows — maybe someday I’ll get to go on one of his tours.

It may take me time to get down there, but getting a tour of the West Wing of the White House took some doing, yet it happened eventually.

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These Piss Me Off (But Won’t Cut Me Down)

I’m a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel/glass-is-more-than-half-full kind of guy. But sometimes I wake up in a bad mood and let my brain smolder over stupid things. This is one of those mornings.

To roll with the moment’s mood, below are a few of the things that piss me off. It’s useful to get angry sometimes — as long as we don’t let it break us.

Mood music for this post comes in two flavors:

“God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG7aS07dAN0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

And “Broken, Beat and Scarred” by Metallica:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eRiAnZt24&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Things that piss me off:

— Health insurers who label mental health care as a luxury instead of a necessity, cutting sufferers off from the things that can make them well again.

— The fact that final closure over the death of Sean Marley still alludes me.

— School districts that take kids who are different (special needs) and put them in a box that holds them back; dismissing them as stupid or trouble makers.

— My habit of picking up one addiction after I put down another.

— Fellow church-goers who think themselves more morally pure than everyone else and are quick to judge others, even though God wants us to be humble and forgiving.

— People who write off suicides as damned souls. True, suicide is a mortal sin. But those who do it are often so mentally ill that they’re not doing it in a moment of sanity or clarity. They have fallen to a disease.

— People who dismiss all addicts as idiots who either need sense knocked into them or need to be locked away. Sometimes they do. But addiction is a disease, not an attitude problem. I salute the priest who came clean about his own alcoholism and taught us all a lesson.

— My ongoing penchant for sinning right after I leave the confessional.

— People who pity me for the things I’ve been through. Your heart’s in the right place, but I’ve been through more joy in life than pain, so no pity is required.

— Letting myself go nuts over things I have no business trying to control.

Now for a few people/places/things that keep me grateful and prevent the other things from cutting me down:

— God

— People in my present

— People from my past

— Recovery

— Metal!

— My Revere roots

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Hiding in Movies

The author used to pretend he was a character from movies and TV shows. Then he realized his own life was much more interesting.

I used to channel my OCD on movies and TV shows with larger-than-life heroes and villains. Star Wars. Superman. Star Trek. It beat the hell out of real life.

I guess it started when I was around 8 and first starting to get really sick from Crohn’s Disease. I had just gotten out of the hospital in December 1978 when “Superman: The Movie” first came out. It was the best possible escape from reality I could have found at the time.

I saw it repeatedly — first in the theaters and then whenever it was on TV. One afternoon, when it was set to premier on HBO, a coastal storm knocked out the power and deprived me of the movie. I went absolutely nuts.

It was the same thing with the Star Wars movies. Pretending I was a Jedi or crackerjack X-wing pilot was much more satisfying than being the fat, sick child whose home life was high tension as my parents’ marriage disintegrated in violent fashion.

Even as a young adult it was better to live in the world of make-believe than to accept life as it truly was. A lightsaber really would have come in handy. So would the power to choke people and control their actions just by telling The Force it’s what you wanted.

Then there was Star Trek. This was the obsession of my 20s, particularly the Next Generation. As a young pup working my way up the newsroom ladder under intense deadlines that in hindsight really weren’t all that intense, I would act like a young lieutenant on the bridge of the Enterprise, saving the day while the Romulans were firing away at the ship.

Remember the Star Trek juror, the woman who insisted on appearing for jury duty in a Starfleet uniform? When a colleague jokingly called me the Star Trek juror, I was genuinely insulted. True story.

At some point in my recovery, I stopped wanting to be people inside the movie screen. I’m not sure when.

I think to some extent we all tend to fantasize that we’re some larger-than-life movie or TV character. That’s why we get hooked on shows like Lost and Battlestar Gallactica. We’re suckers for the notion that you can be part of some huge destiny, just as Starbuck from Gallactica was destined to lead her people to Earth after the Cylons wiped out the 12 Colonies.

If you don’t follow the plot I just described, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a TV show plot, anyway.

As I found recovery and truly started to bring my OCD under control, I realized my own life as a husband, father, recovering addict and writer is much more interesting than Jedi battles and stopping a falling helicopter with your bare hands.

I still watch these shows from time to time. But it’s different. I put the films on, get a kick out of the action and appreciate the writing and character development, then when it’s over I move on.

I loved the 2009 Star Trek film. The casting was brilliant and the relentless pace was satisfying. But I didn’t find myself thinking the movie over in my head in an endless loop like I used to.

After all, I had a more interesting and meaningful reality to get back to.

I’m not a hero and I have no special powers. I’m not famous, either.

But I do just fine with what I have.

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Writing to Save My Life

The author on why he became a writer and how it shaped his recovery from mental illness and addiction.

People often ask me how the hell I do so much writing every week, between the three-to-four pieces I do for my employer, CSO Magazine, this blog and a book I’m writing on the side. They also ask how I’m able to write so fast, especially during security conferences.

At the Security B-Sides event in San Francisco in March, one friend marveled that I was able to write and post an article on a talk she had just given within minutes of the presentation ending. My friend Jennifer Jabbusch explained it well when she said, “That’s his job. It’s what he does.”

So, I figured it’s time I wrote something about writing.

When I was a kid, everyone expected me to become an artist because I was constantly drawing. In fact, I went to Northeast Metro Tech for high school to study architecture and was well on my way to settling on that for a career. Then, as my passion for metal music deepened, I became obsessed about poetry and the lyrics people like Nikki Sixx, Phil Lynott and James Hetfield were writing. So I started trying to BE them. I do still use the architectural skills when I write, so it wasn’t a waste of studies. When I write security articles, I usually approach it the way an architect approaches each new blueprint.

In hindsight, I wasn’t very good at it. But I persisted. The more music I listened to — and as an employee of Rockit Records, I had access to an endless supply — the more lyrics I wrote.

A lot of what I wrote became the lyrics for songs I would write with the band Skeptic Slang. The lyrics were mostly negative reactions to life at the time. In fact, if I were at a party with the me of the late 1980s-early 1990s, I probably wouldn’t like the younger me very much. I would dismiss him as a whiny little punk. But I was just a product of my experiences up to that point. Those who have read this blog from the beginning will understand. Those who don’t can get the back story here.

Finding those old notebooks full of Skeptic Slang lyrics has become a mini obsession of mine.

As I was ramping up the music writing, I was pursuing a parallel passion for journalism. In college, I dove into it relentlessly, writing for the Salem State Log and slowly earning myself a degree in English (the major) and Communications (the minor). I also helped edit submissions for Sounding’s East, the college literary magazine edited by a beautiful redhead who I eventually married. If you really want to know how to write effectively, check out her blog here.

I had my first reporter job  before I graduated, covering the Swampscott, Mass. school district. From there I got a full-time reporting gig  in Stoneham, then started editing for papers in Lynn, Billerica, Chelmsford and Westford. I was not a fast writer back then. Thanks to the OCD, I would slowly outline each story and, after writing the first draft, I’d read it back aloud, again and again, polishing one paragraph at a time. I would annoy many a colleague doing that, especially when I became night editor at The Eagle-Tribune.

Things started to go wrong in the latter job, because that’s when the surface cracks of my OCD started to appear and I started falling apart. One of the lessons, in hindsight, was that it was a mistake to go into all editing with no writing. I lost sight of why I got into the business when I became a full-on editor.

My entrance onto the information security scene was a result of my craving to write again. The security beat at TechTarget was my way back in, and I haven’t stopped since.

Some things have changed, though.

My writing is much faster today. I don’t do outlines of each story and I don’t read ’em back to myself aloud. I just do it and send them off to an editor. That’s partly the result of experience and partly the result of bringing the OCD under control, since the over polishing was an obsessive-compulsive action.

The result is that I don’t mind having several projects in play at once. In fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I need to write every day for mental exercise. The action of typing is now a soothing action for me. I love the sound and feel of my fingers pounding away on each key. It’s like the music I listen to while I write.

I am a two-fingered typist, by the way. I’m proud of that fact.

When I started this blog it was because I was ready to share my experiences so others might be compelled to come out of the shadows of mental illness and addiction. Hopefully I’ve had some success there. But regardless, this particular writing has become a critical tool of my own recovery.

By writing about the experience, I get them out of my head and can move on.

It’s no embellishment to say I’m literally writing to save my life. Writing HAS saved my life.

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The 12-Step Survival Guide of Life

For those who need a 12-Step Program, here are a few lessons from the author’s personal experiences.

Mood music for this post: “Rise Above” by Black Flag:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Y4iUfktOo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

When you follow the 12 Steps of Recover as I do, you discover the little things in ways you never could before. Yesterday was another example.

Erin, Sean, Duncan and I went deep-sea fishing with my parents and had a wonderful afternoon. One of my favorite places to be has always been out on the ocean. That’s where my roots are. I grew up sitting at the water’s edge in search of peace that always eluded me.

Water's edge next to Gibson Park, Revere. I came here often to ponder my troubles.

As for yesterday, a lot of things were different because of my recovery. It used to be unbearable to spend time with my parents. It’s not there fault. It’s just that I could never stop walking on egg shells because I would be waiting for the critical comments that my paranoid, people-pleasing mind expected.

Now I can simply enjoy everyone’s unique personalities and suck in the moment. For someone with OCD, being able to live in the moment is absolutely huge.

Since my recovery program is essential to the life I’m now Blessed to have, I thought I’d share posts that deal specifically with the program:

How a Binge Eater in Recovery Packs for a Trip

The author’s program of recovery from addiction makes travel more interesting. Here’s how.

The Gratitude List

Some of the folks who have helped the author survive along the way.

The Healers (Adventures in Step 9)

Tripped on Step 9 many times. But I got back up. Here’s what happened next.

Forgiveness is a Bitch

Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Pouring Gas on the Fire

People in recovery often go into hyper mode, making up for time wasted in the grip of addiction. Mix in some OCD and here’s what happens…

Hitting Bottom

The author didn’t hit rock bottom before he got help. He hit several bottoms.

The 12 Steps of Christmas

The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory. There’s really no Christmas theme here, other than that the author found the headline catchy.

Sobriety Vs. Abstinance

Whenever I share my experiences with OCD and the related binge-eating disorder [See: The Most Uncool Addiction], there’s a word I always refrain from using if I’m outside the safe confines of my OA group: Abstinence. I don’t hate the word. But I don’t like it much, either. Nevertheless, it’s an important word in my recovery vocabulary.

The Case for Self-Deprecation

The author on why self-deprecation is a handy tool for controlling his demons.

Power of Sarcasm

The author explains why humor wrapped in sarcasm is one of his favorite coping tools — even though the edge of the knife can be too sharp at times.

Red Bull Blues

The author learns once again that when he puts one addiction down, he picks up another.

Have Fun With Your Therapist (The Shrink Stigma)

Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.

The Angry Years

The author can’t say his temper was a direct result of OCD, depression and addictive behavior. But dealing with those things did make it go away. Mostly.

Running from Sin, Running with Scissors

The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

The Case for Multiple Personalities

The author embraces the multiple personalities in his head. Here’s why.

Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or Less

The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light.

How Metal Saved Me

Heavy metal music is one of the author’s main tools of recovery.

Someone to Watch Over Me (Desk Junk)

It’s true. The junk on your desk can be a tool of recovery.

Rest Re-Defined

The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.