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 Gene McCarthy.

I write the blog Unpickled as well as books about recovery.

I tell my stories there, and I hold space for your stories here.

And it's just me on the episode today because I've been hearing that you're

anxious to know where I've been and you'd like me to get back to regular programming. So in the

interest of quickly getting a show up for you today, I am recording a solo episode and then I

will edit the other interviews that I have for you for the upcoming shows.

So here I am. I'm back. I've been away for a few weeks from the podcast and I want to thank

you for your patience while I took a much needed break, even though it was a rather spontaneous

break. I'll tell you what happened. I knew I was going to be going to our cottage in the woods at the end of May.

And I intended to get one episode out before I left and then one while I was there.

So I was scrambling on that last day to get packed and ready to go. May was super busy for me here.

And on that last day, it became very clear to me that I could either do everything and be super stressed,

or I could let a few things go and keep my head on straight.

And you know what?

Sometimes we just have to practice what we preach.

And I'm always telling you to be gentle with yourselves.

And I had to realize that,

...