my careless contagion

This is a new song, and it's pretty good. It sounds older than its release date of 2023. It got a lot of airplay, I didn't like it at first, but after about 10 listens it started to make sense (I may be a little slow). So much of country music is about drinking (thumbs down), but let's go with that for this post. Since I likely won't still be writing here regularly after the 28th, this is a good time for the annual sobriety post.  It was April 10 years ago when I stopped drinking. Every year I memorialize what God did in my heart then. It's nothing short of a miracle. It's a miracle I function. A miracle I'm still alive. I'm literally a walking miracle, and people walk by me like I'm some ordinary Joe. They have no idea.  A decade without drinking is a curious thing. It was supposed to kill me. Like I got a get-out-of-jail-free card. A new lease on life. A new life, new identity, new responsibilities. Alcohol was my way of ending myself, and slowly. ...

My white bears (hastily scrawled): 1) End up alone 2) Angry 3) Defeated 4) Paralyzed 5) Drinking 6) Twisted up (whatever that means) 7) Suicide I read an article a few months ago about facing your white bears, which are unwanted thoughts (a bit more:  http://www.apa.org/monitor/ 2011/10/unwanted-thoughts.aspx ), often worst-case scenarios. The idea of writing them down is thought to be helpful because once you put these things in front of you, you can take them apart. By taking them apart, you realize these are things you've either previously dealt with or are figureoutable. Once you say them or write them down, you realize these are common problems and you already have the tools to deal with them. In essence, they become smaller on paper than in your mind.  When I got divorced, I was faced with a variety of fears and uncertainties. I wrote down the seven scariest. I've already experienced the top four. Number six, I suppose, means that my inside...