I own it, I did that, not proud that was me, and when I face it a little dignity, not looking for excuse me, I just want to be free from power, weakness, head on the feet.

Free, free, free, free, free.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the bubble hour where real people tell real stories of addiction and recovery.

I'm your host, Gene McCarthy.

I write the blog Unpickled, where I've been telling my story of life after alcohol since my very first day of sobriety in 2011.

I tell my stories there and I invite you to share your stories here.

And I'm so excited for the conversation that we are about to have because this is the voice

of a friend that is near and dear to my heart and quite likely yours as well.

If you're a longtime listener of the bubble hour, you have no doubt missed the

voice of Catherine, former co-host and wise, warm, and lovely, lovely friend. And if you're a new

listener of the bubble hour, you've probably poked backwards into the archives a little bit

and discovered that there was a good chunk of time where we had a number of us hosting this show and so that there was a number of different voices that you were hearing on any given episode. So Catherine is back. She's had a busy couple of years and I've just asked her to come and tell us a little bit about what she's been up to.

But we also decided that it would be nice to look back a little bit and hear her story from farther back and revisit the arc of Catherine's story as well as catch up on things.

So, Catherine, my dear, dear friend, I love you so. Welcome to the

bubble hour. I like crying, just hearing the opening music and hearing your voice and just knowing

everybody is out there. I have such gratitude for you and for the bubble hour community

for how you've helped me over the years.

And I'm just, I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you.

Oh, it feels like you're home to me.

I know.

It feels like home to be together on this call.

It's just, it's so nice.

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