Addiction Recovery Blog

Nicknamed the “armpit” of California due to its highly conservative populace and out-of-date technology, Bakersfield, which is the largest city in Kern County, has an intense methamphetamine (meth) problem. Bakersfield’s meth problem is so exaggerated that in 2014, over 50% of felonies in Kern County alone were meth-related. During that year, there was a 37.2% increase in meth-related juvenile probations. Other areas of Kern County, including the small towns of Lake Isabella, Bodfish, and Wofford

As an alcoholic with five years of sobriety, I identify with the protagonist, Neddy Merrill, in John Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer. The story is about an upper-class suburbanite named Neddy Merrill, who, along with his wife, Lucinda, is hanging out with their friends, Donald and Helen Westerhazy, by the Westerhazy’s swimming pool. Merrill is off by himself, drinking gin, while his wife and friends complain about their hangovers from drinking too much wine the

  During my second year of sobriety, when I lived in Palmdale, my neighbor, who was also in recovery, would periodically send me texts like, “Keep on rockin’ that attitude of gratitude!” Every time I would see one of her texts, I would cringe. It took me several years to realize that “rocking an attitude of gratitude” is vital to recovery! But the truth is that many people, not just recovering alcoholics and addicts, have

The Big Book states, “We are like men who have lost their legs. We can never grow new ones.” In many ways, that sentence brings to mind the frightening fairy tale, The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson. In the story, a young, destitute girl is given a pair of red shoes. Much to the townsfolk’s consternation, the young girl, dressed in rags, wears the shoes to her mother’s funeral, and a rich woman sees

  Washington Irving’s folk tale, Rip Van Winkle, is one of the most notorious of American legends. Rip Van Winkle, along with his wife, son and dog lived in a tiny village in the Catskills in upstate New York. He was a carefree man, who often shouldered his gun as he took his dog for long walks in the mountains nearby just so he could escape his wife, who nagged him to death. One day,