I own it, I did that, not proud, but that was me, and when I face it, I take back a little dignity, not looking for excuses, I just want to be free from power.

Weakness had on me.

Free, free, free, free, free.

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

I'm your host, Gene McCarthy, recovery author, blogger, and host of this podcast.

I've been chronicling my adventures in life after alcohol since my first day of sobriety over nine years ago in my blog Unpickled.

And in books like the Unpickled

Holiday Survival Guide and my newly released poetry collection, The Ember Ever There. I tell my story

there and I hold space for your stories here. Before we meet today's guest, I just want to start

by telling you thank you to everyone so far who has gone out and bought the

ember ever there my collection of poetry on change grief growth recovery and rediscovery

i'm so pleased with this book and the feedback has been phenomenal which is an absolute

honor it's pretty vulnerable. Putting

something out like poetry is akin to publishing diary excerpts, really. And I'm not inclined to write a

memoir. This is as close as I'm inclined to come as to share poems about what my experiences are.

But I like this even better for me and for you because I feel like these are the crossroads

of our truth. The emotional experience sort of boiled down to their essence. When you strip away

all the details, what we're left with is the commonalities that we share. And so my hope is that

as you read through these poems, you'll really see yourself in them. And for people who are

not in recovery, but have a loved one in recovery, it's been a really wonderful way for them to

understand what the experience is like for other people. I have a special section in it about the 12

steps, a different poem for each of the 12

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