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Dear Hope Nation, Funny how our experience leads to strength and hope. Anyone who’s sat in church basements recognizes the grammar, the story arc, of the recovery tale. The speaker begins by telling a bit about her past, including her drug and alcohol use, moves on to...

Dear Hope Nation, Forty-four years ago, I began Army basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Given my clownish nature, you might expect basic training would have been hellish for me, going against my improvisational style. You would be wrong. I have spent a good amount...

Dear Hope Nation, For the six months before we set sail on the seas of During the pandemic, I’d stayed off Facebook, not with some sacred vow but because I’d discovered what a huge time vacuum it was for me. Being isolated from most of the world—outside of my oldest...

Dear Hope Nation, Today is Good Friday. On this day in Jerusalem a little less than 2000 years ago, Jesus was hung up on a cross between two thieves, having been sentenced to death by Pilate, the Roman governor overseeing the Roman province of Judea. Crucifixion was...

Dear Hope Nation, Since the pandemic began, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the universe, humanity’s place in it and other highfalutin topics. I’ve also been thinking about more mundane things like whatever happened to all the junior-high girls I had unspoken...

Dear Hope Nation, Over the past few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about leadership in a time of crisis. This is not a political analysis and will have no finger-pointing of any kind. Promise. Since Hope physically closed, I’ve gotten praise—some of it even deserved—for my...

Dear Hope Nation, I am not a psychologist, sociologist, phrenologist or any other -ogist. I’m a formerly homeless drunk who observes life and jots down some of what I see and what I think about it. When it comes to the explanation of how things work or what it all...

APRIL 6, 2020 Dear Hope Nation, I’m always wary when people ask me certain questions, ones which I know are designed to elicit a stock answer so the questioner can begin his or her pitch. For instance, “Have you ever dreamed of being rich?” Or “If you died today, do...

Dear Hope Nation, Here in During the Pandemic, we don’t have all that much to anticipate. I mean, I still look forward to the weekends, even though they don’t taste all that much different than weekdays—maybe slightly less aspirin aftertaste. I visualize sunny days,...

Dear Hope Nation, A few days ago I talked about the Land of Before (say, three weeks ago), the journey across During (where we are now) and the land of After (what life will be like when Coronavirus has ceased to keep us locked down in our homes). My focus in the...

Dear Hope Nation, Many of us are now spending 24 hours a day with people we would not have chosen, or would have chosen until we actually had to spend 24 hours a day with them. Musical chairs is not a fun game when the rules are altered to remove all the open chairs...

Dear Hope Nation, One of the beautiful things about working in a peer recovery center like Hope is I don’t have to pretend to be anything more or less than I am. I am a person in long-term recovery who has had love affairs with all kinds of chemicals over the years....

Dear Hope Nation, In a previous life–and I know this is hard to believe–I was a Baptist minister, a born-again Christian. Really. Today, my spiritual life is very different, and not something I’m going to bore you with right now. Suffice to say I am not a traditional...

Dear Hope Nation,Three weeks ago, without knowing it at all, we lived in a different world, the land of Before. In the land of Before we could live our lives without compulsive hand-washing, daily government briefings and closed everythings. With a few government...

Not well but enthusiastically. That’s how I paint and, most times, live my life. And that’s good enough for me.  Dear Hope Nation, I’ve learned a lot in recovery—about the universe, about humanity and, most of all, about me. Learning about the universe has been...

Dear Hope Nation,Today is Sunday, a day of rest, so my message will be a series of short sharp shots.First, if you didn’t see any of the Sicker than Most Show last night, you missed a great example of community gathering together. Not an example of a well-organized...

Dear Hope Nation, In recovery, we are a people of that name. We carry hope, that spiritual virus that drives despair into the light, where it is revealed as nothing more than the scary shadow play of our childhood beds. Having clung to despair ourselves, using it to...

Dear Hope Nation,  “There is nothing new under the sun.” King Solomon in EcclesiastesOld Solomon was absolutely right, on this and many other topics. As long as people are people and the earth is the earth, nothing new appears, just the same things in new...

Dear Hope Nation, We all have heroes, sung and unsung. Today, I’d like to tell you about one of my strangest personal recovery heroes, describe what he’s doing tomorrow night and invite you to be part of it.I am a 61-year-old man in long-term recovery from both...

Dear Hope Nation, Keith trying to grow a beard After 10 days of seclusion, I’ve recognized one lie I’ve told myself for years. Back when I was using, I assumed I’d eventually be locked up by the state for some period of time. My vision of, say, five years in...

ear Hope Nation, By the time you finish reading this, you will have experienced the creation of a new word! Read on to become the first kid in your neighborhood to utter these syllables and grasp their meaning. My friend, Tito, is very impatient, so I know he wants to...

Dear Hope Nation, One of my favorite books of all time is Middlemarch. Written almost 150 years ago by a woman whose pen name was George Eliot, it tells the story of a small English Midlands town, primarily through the eyes of Dorothea, an orphaned young woman who has...

Dear Hope Nation, It’s Sunday, so this letter will be a bit shorter than previous ones. One other difference is it’s taken completely from things I’ve heard in various church basements, meeting halls and repurposed classrooms. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, I know...