The Disease Doesn’t Stay Home Just Because We Packed a Suitcase

SOBER THROUGH THE YEARS

Sober since January 23, 1988

THE DISEASE DOESN’T STAY HOME JUST BECAUSE WE PACKED A SUITCASE

A NOTE FROM GUY

I’ve noticed that travel can make us feel like we’ve stepped outside our regular lives.

When I’m away from home and the people who know me best, there can be a strange sense of anonymity. A hotel room, a different city, a vacation schedule. Nobody knows me here. Nobody knows my routine.

And somewhere in that thinking can come the dangerous idea that the rules have changed.

They haven’t.

My disease isn’t tied to a zip code. It doesn’t stay behind just because I packed a suitcase.

For me, staying sober while traveling means bringing recovery with me. That might mean looking up a meeting before I leave, making a phone call to someone at home, listening to something recovery-related while I’m driving, or simply remembering that I still need the same things away from home that I need when I’m sitting in my regular meeting.

Recovery travels with us because so does everything we’re recovering from.

AROUND THE RECOVERY WORLD

Marijuana Anonymous World Services Convention

The 2026 Marijuana Anonymous World Services Convention wraps up today in Hapeville, Georgia. The October 9–11 gathering includes meetings, workshops, speakers, fellowship and service opportunities for members from around the world.

Source: Marijuana Anonymous World Services

Al-Anon Adult Children Online Workshop

Al-Anon’s sixth annual Adult Children Online Workshop also concludes today. This year’s two-day virtual event focuses on “Practicing Acceptance” and is designed for people affected by growing up around alcoholism.

Source: Al-Anon Family Groups

Beth McDonough on rebuilding after alcoholism

Former television crime reporter Beth McDonough recently appeared on MPR News to talk about what happens after the drinking stops. McDonough lost her job, home and sense of identity following two drunken-driving arrests before rebuilding her life in sobriety.

It is an important part of recovery that doesn’t always get talked about enough. Getting sober stops the destruction. Then comes the work of building a life.

Source: MPR News

34 years sober and still saying yes

Recovery Radio Network recently featured Amy, who shared her story of more than three decades of sobriety. Her experience covers teenage drinking, fear, panic attacks, family, meetings, fellowship and the willingness to keep participating in recovery one day at a time.

Source: Recovery Radio Network

WATCHING, READING & LISTENING

The One About Matthew Perry

Netflix will premiere the three-part documentary series The One About Matthew Perry on October 27. The series looks at Perry’s career, his long struggle with addiction, his advocacy for people seeking recovery and his life beyond the character most people knew from Friends.

Source: Netflix

Shuffle

The documentary Shuffle investigates the darker side of the for-profit addiction treatment industry and follows people caught in a system where insurance money can sometimes become more valuable than recovery.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival and continues to appear at screenings and festivals.

For anyone interested in the business of addiction treatment, this one looks worth watching.

Source: SXSW / GlobeDocs

Will and Attention

Meghan O’Gieblyn’s memoir Will and Attention was released October 6.

O’Gieblyn writes about addiction, spirituality and personal change, including returning to alcohol after eleven years of sobriety and eventually finding her way back into recovery.

What interests me most about the book is the question underneath the story: Why can we understand exactly what is happening to us and still have such difficulty changing?

Anyone who has spent time around addiction knows that knowledge alone isn’t always enough.

Source: Doubleday / Penguin Random House

Sober Cast: Step 12

Sober Cast recently released another installment in its 15-part Big Book study.

Part 10 focuses on Step 12 and applying recovery principles in everyday life. The original workshop was recorded in 2009, but making older AA talks and workshops easily available gives another generation of people access to them.

Source: Sober Cast

FROM AA HISTORY

October 10, 1943

Six of AA’s first nine members attended a clubhouse anniversary gathering in Toledo, Ohio.

It is interesting to think about how small AA still was at that point. What we now think of as a worldwide fellowship was still a collection of recovering alcoholics trying to figure out how to stay sober and help the next person.

October 9–11, 1969

The first World Service Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous was held in New York, bringing together delegates from 14 countries.

In a little more than three decades, the program had traveled from one alcoholic talking to another in Akron, Ohio, to an international fellowship.

That’s quite a trip.

THIS WEEK’S REFLECTION

STAYING TEACHABLE AFTER A LOT OF YEARS

Having a lot of time in recovery can become a disadvantage if we stop being teachable.

When we have decades of sobriety, it is easy to slip into the role of the expert. We’ve heard the slogans. We know the Steps. We’ve probably heard hundreds or thousands of people tell their stories.

Then someone with ninety days starts sharing and we can catch ourselves thinking about everything they haven’t figured out yet.

I’ve done it.

The danger is that while I’m busy deciding what they need to learn, I might completely miss what they have to teach me.

A newcomer often has a raw honesty that can fade with time. They remember exactly what the last drink felt like. They remember the fear, the insanity, the promises and the desperation because it happened Tuesday.

For someone with many years sober, those memories can soften.

That newcomer may be carrying the exact reminder I need.

Long-term sobriety doesn’t graduate us from alcoholism. There isn’t a ceremony where they hand us a diploma and tell us we’ve completed the program.

We stay students.

Humility after many years sober can be as simple as walking into a meeting without deciding beforehand who has something worthwhile to say.

No titles. No seniority. No invisible ranking system based on anniversary coins.

Just one alcoholic listening to another.

Maybe the person with ninety days needs something I learned thirty years ago.

And maybe I desperately need something they learned yesterday.

RESEARCH WORTH WATCHING

PEAKING: Psychedelics and the Pursuit of Happiness

A new documentary called PEAKING: Psychedelics and the Pursuit of Happiness opened in New York on October 8 as part of its limited theatrical rollout.

The film follows several people undergoing psychedelic-assisted treatment, including military veterans, trauma survivors, professional athletes and a woman struggling with opioid addiction.

This is an area worth watching carefully.

Psychedelic-assisted treatment is receiving increasing attention in medicine and addiction research, but it is very different from traditional peer-support programs such as AA. The enthusiasm surrounding these treatments also deserves the same healthy skepticism we should bring to any rapidly growing treatment approach.

The interesting question for the recovery community isn’t whether psychedelics are “good” or “bad.”

It is whether carefully controlled clinical treatments can help certain people, what the evidence eventually shows, and where those treatments fit alongside abstinence-based recovery, therapy, medication and mutual-support fellowships.

Source: High Point Mountain Productions

BEFORE I GO

We can spend years carrying mistakes that everyone else has already allowed us to put down.

Self-forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending we didn’t hurt people. Recovery asks us to do the opposite. We look honestly at what happened, make amends where possible and change the behavior.

But after we have taken responsibility, continuing to punish ourselves doesn’t repair anything.

At some point, guilt has done its job.

The best amends may be living differently today.

See you soon. 😊

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