March 16, 2020 (Re-shared) Dear Hope Nation, As we await the unfolding of the coronavirus here in the United States, I want to remind you of something you know but may be in danger of forgetting: You don’t have to use.If your work is canceled and you’ve got time on your hands, you don’t have to use.If you’re working 16 hours a day at your job, you don’t have to use.If you’re tested for coronavirus and the results are negative, you don’t have to use.If you’re tested and the results are positive, you don’t have to use.As a man in long-term recovery from opiates, alcohol and any other damn substance I could use to escape myself, I know the temptation to pick up. I, like you, know how to feel significantly better for a short time—using a needle, a bottle, a straw or other instrument—but I also know I don’t

Don’t Suck On Hairdryers Re-shared from March 17, 2020   Dear Hope Nation: True Confession: I am an odd man with odd interests, particularly when it comes to history. I know more than any normal person should about major-league baseball of the 1920’s, the Washingtonian Movement of the 1840’s, and controversies in the early church. More darkly, I’ve read much too much and spent more than a reasonable amount of time studying the Plague (aka the Black Plague, the Pestilence, the Great Bubonic Plague and the Blue Sickness). While I could bore (or intrigue) you with details on the Plague’s spread, its societal or economic effects or the church’s response to it, I instead want to share some of the proposed cures for the disease: –Rubbing a chopped-up snake on the buboes–Drinking arsenic, mercury or 10-year-old treacle–Living in a sewer–Becoming a flagellant, whipping yourself with ropes or branches–Crushing jewels, particularly

Each of us can spread a little light Re-shared from March 18, 2020   Dear Hope Nation,Although these days are dark, we still have each other, even if the word “have” exists only in a virtual sense. Still, think of how lucky I am to be able to write these words, far away from you, and know they can reach your eyes. The telephone can be a moon coming out of the blackness. How miraculous I can talk with you, you can talk with her, they can talk with us! Goddammit, let’s use this tool not just for checking Facebook for the latest rumors or snapping pictures of ourselves, but to connect as best we can with others in recovery or having a hankering to get into recovery.Some phone calls I’ve had over the last day.–A woman trying to support people in recovery through phone calls, emails and Facebook. We

Give yourself a pat on the back and keep going Re-shared from March 19, 2020   Dear Hope Nation, If you’re reading this, congratulations! You’re alive! Most people aren’t. The BBC estimates about 107 billion people have ever lived, EVER. If there are about 7 billion people walking the planet today, about 15 people are dead for every living soul, and you’re one of the lucky ones! Maybe life is not all you’d dreamed it would be—and if this time IS your dream time, you may want to have your medications checked—but life still goes on and you’re still on its team. Again, congratulations on being alive. Give yourself a pat on the back and keep on going. On that pat on the back business, last night I had a dream come true, a real dream, a good dream. For silly but necessary reasons, I had to fill up the

Dear Hope Nation, It’s Friday and I’m going to use that as an excuse to rub some feathers the wrong way. All it takes is a few sentences. Beginning . . . Now: I hate the 60’s, or at least the music of the 60’s.  I’m 62 years old, and started listening to the radio on my own when I was 10 in 1968.  By “on my own” I mean choosing the music I’d listen to.  Although TV was reserved for evening hours, our family always had a radio going, usually tuned to the Top-40 station in Dover, WTSN-AM.  So, I’ve heard the Doors, with that silly rhyme of “road” and “toad,” and listened to such godawful one-offs as “Patches,” “Winchester Cathedral” and “They’re Coming to Take Me Away.”  From the beginning of my listening, though, I’d been completely uninspired by one group in particular, a band that everyone else