AWAKEN today

AWAKEN today: daily perspectives from my journey embracing the 12-Step way of life

Close-up of a smiling mouth with red lipstick and a strand of blue dental floss drawn between the teeth.

AWAKENING on 

One Tooth

BJ Fogg built a flossing habit by committing to one tooth, and said Victory to the mirror in the worst season of his life. Two years after being “back,” the way forward has to be smaller than I think.

Two people walking along a long wooden boardwalk through green marshland.

AWAKENING on 

The Long Walk

bell hooks’ love ethic reframes a long walk as an ordinary practice of care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.

Two chained hands resting on the ground, lit deep red.

AWAKENING on 

Whack-A-Mole

When the old escape route changes shape, recovery asks a harder question: am I coming back to life, or only finding a cleaner way to disappear?

Bare farm field at first light, parallel furrows leading to a single bare hardwood tree on the horizon, soft rose-grey pre-dawn sky, mist at the horizon.

AWAKENING on 

Fallow

A field left fallow looks the same as a field abandoned. Depression brought the silence. Substitutes filled the empty space. But fallow is not failure. It is what soil does when it has been giving for too long. Coming back is its own work, and each return teaches what the last did not.

Illustration of a figure in red in the foreground, a small pale figure and a pair of legs in the distance.

AWAKENING on 

The Cavern

Internalized homophobia forms before awareness, shaping how desire is interpreted. What feels instinctive is learned. By making that structure visible, recovery allows inherited shame to be questioned, loosening its hold on intimacy, identity, and self-perception.

Recent AWAKENINGS

  • Close-up of a smiling mouth with red lipstick and a strand of blue dental floss drawn between the teeth.

    One Tooth

    4 Min Read

    BJ Fogg built a flossing habit by committing to one tooth, and said Victory to the mirror in the worst season of his life. Two years after being “back,” the way forward has to be smaller than I think.

  • Two people walking along a long wooden boardwalk through green marshland.

    The Long Walk

    3 Min Read

    bell hooks’ love ethic reframes a long walk as an ordinary practice of care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.

  • Two chained hands resting on the ground, lit deep red.

    Whack-A-Mole

    5 Min Read

    When the old escape route changes shape, recovery asks a harder question: am I coming back to life, or only finding a cleaner way to disappear?

  • Bare farm field at first light, parallel furrows leading to a single bare hardwood tree on the horizon, soft rose-grey pre-dawn sky, mist at the horizon.

    Fallow

    4 Min Read

    A field left fallow looks the same as a field abandoned. Depression brought the silence. Substitutes filled the empty space. But fallow is not failure. It is what soil does when it has been giving for too long. Coming back is its own work, and each return teaches what the last did not.

  • Illustration of a figure in red in the foreground, a small pale figure and a pair of legs in the distance.

    The Cavern

    4 Min Read

    Internalized homophobia forms before awareness, shaping how desire is interpreted. What feels instinctive is learned. By making that structure visible, recovery allows inherited shame to be questioned, loosening its hold on intimacy, identity, and self-perception.

  • A hand holding a keycard to a hotel door lock while the other turns the handle.

    New Beginnings

    4 Min Read

    New beginnings cannot be forced or decided. William Bridges shows that they emerge from the interior work of transition, arriving sideways through quiet signals when the inner reorganisation is finally complete.