My name is Dan for the sake of this blog and me keeping a bit of my anonymity intact.  I’m a sober alcoholic in AA for more than ten years.  At various times I have went to other fellowships, but for me I discovered over time that AA has all I need when it come to a 12 step program.

I grew up in a city, moved to another city, and now live in my third big city.  Sounds fairly stable doesn’t it?  Well it is now, however for most of my life I was running away.  If you had asked me from what I could not have given you a clear answer.

I discovered I was running away from myself.  Yes, it’s fairly obvious that was never going to work.

I stopped running when I got sober in AA; its not that I didn’t want to run, but for some reason I couldn’t anymore.  I wanted to be sober.  It didn’t matter to me that I believed that being sober would mean unhappiness for the rest of my life, living in a grey world.

I got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.  I believe that it works.  I don’t know if it works for everyone – it doesn’t seem to.  I think there are lots of ways to get sober – but this is the one that worked for me and I know about that.  So if I don’t talk too much about other ways to get sober on this blog it’s because this is where my knowledge is.

Why the countryside photos in your blog posts?

When I stopped drinking there was no beauty left in the world, from where I was anyway.  Over time the beauty came back into my life; some of the first signs of beauty that I noticed were the leaves on the trees, the sunset, a beautiful sunset reflecting off light clouds.  That’s why.

And why do I write here?

I really, really like writing.  I write for a living and some would say that I need all the practice I can get.  This project has been running around on and off in my head for the last few years.  Should I write about something so close and personal to me?  What do I have to contribute?  I’ll let you make up your own mind on all that, and I’m just going to get on with it.

Live well.