I own it, I didn't, 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 me.

Free, 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 first day of sobriety in 2011.

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

And today we have a listener of the show who graciously offered to share his experience

over the past six months without alcohol.

As a matter of fact, he first wrote into the show three years ago and said, you know, I'm

listening to the show and I'm kind of interested in what you're saying.

And then I didn't hear from him again for a while.

And sure enough, a few years later, he wrote back and said, guess what, I did it.

I'm doing it.

I'm living this life.

So the guest today is

Brendan. And hello, Brendan. Thank you so much for joining us and telling us your story.

Hello, Jean. Hello, hello listeners. Great to be here.

Oh, we're glad to have you. So I'm in the West in Canada, and it is snowy here.

Is it cold where you are this January day?

Yeah, sure.

So I'm in upstate New York, western New York area, and it is in the single digits these days,

and it was negative 5 or 7 or 10 over the weekend.

...