DaCrizzow

    Unless we make changes, nothing will change. I remember about 20 years ago in Nashville when the city gave us those first (yellow, I think) crates to use for recycling. Nobody I knew used them for that. NOBODY. We used them to hold more trash, as laundry baskets, storage bins, or just threw them away. Now days you go over someone's house and it can look like a full service recycling center for paper, glass, plastic, even compost. It took us awhile to get here but this is how it happens. Now it's a collective consciousness to the point that you'll walk several blocks with a the empty water bottle you've been drinking until you see the right bin to toss it in. This works on the individual level as well.     Most of the people I know seem to be on two sides of a fence these days. One side, the side where they've got a nice routine going and see no reason to challenge or question it. Good for them. I've been there. Would like to get there again to some degree.

    This weekend puts me at 17 years sober. That last day of using at times feels like it was happening yesterday and at other times feels like it happened to someone else. All back and forth within a few seconds. ALL THE TIME.     I get people reaching out to me all the time about getting sober. About a dozen or so a year. I always tell them the same thing. AA. If we live near each other, I offer to go with them or go get coffee and I'll tell them about it, or any number of options but it always involves AA. After that they stop reaching out. It always intrigues me how someone's life may be out of control enough to reach out for help but if it involves sitting in a room for one hour then, 'no thanks.' Sometimes it kind of pisses me off but ultimately I just think, "Good for them. Maybe they're not that bad off after all."     But....usually through the conversations about going to a meeting, the same old "red flags" come up. They're always