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.

Morning.

I watched this newborn day unfold and promise myself, I won't ask too much of it.

After all, it's just a day. I won't expect to change the world or even myself today,

but only not just both in a better direction.

Hi, everyone. Happy New Year. Welcome to the bubble hour.

I'm Gene McCarthy and that was a poem from my book, The Ember Ever There. And I'm reading it because I feel

like it's a great poem for starting the new year. It's a new day, but it's a new year. And we don't need to

fix everything all at once with this new year. We don't need to change the whole world. We just

need to keep inching ourselves in better directions. And I am here on my own today on this show to

welcome you to season nine, episode one of the Bobble Hour.

So for those of you who are new to the show and don't know me, don't know my voice, so let me introduce

myself. My name is Gene McCarthy. I am the author of a blog about recovery called Unpickled,

and I started it on March 21st, 2011, which was my first day of sobriety.

And it started in secret, but over time, I decided to show who I was because I was just having such a good experience interacting with so many people.

That's my blog where I've been writing about recovery for almost 10 full years now.

And along the way, I joined this amazing group of women that was creating this podcast called The Bubble Hour.

It began in 2012 with a pair of my friends who I didn't know yet. Actually, they're my friends now,

but I didn't know them then, Lisa and Ellie. And if you go way back in the archives, 300 plus episodes

back, you'll hear their very first episode that they did together. And it's so cute because

...