Sober Journey Quotes

Blind, broke, jobless, and frustrated, Kevin found it difficult to get through the following few months. But he had one big thing going for him. He was sober. It was a new beginning.

Sober, gainfully employed, and physically secure once again, Kevin began to relax. His confidence slowly returned. For the first time since the onset of his blindness, he let his guard down and a crack in his carefully constructed veneer formed. Light flooded in. And with it, hope.

There is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false step, never shies. If there is a river or fjord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious, and gain the opposite bank.

Puddleglum,' they've said, 'You're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and ell pie. You want something to sober you down a bit. We're only saying it for your own good, Puddleglum.' That's what they say. Now a job like this --a journey up north just as winter's beginning looking for a prince that probably isn't there, by way of ruined city nobody's ever seen-- will be just the thing. If that doesn't steady a chap, I don't know what will.

Fiddler briefly wondered about those three dragons - where they had gone, what tasks awaited them - then he shrugged. Their appearance, their departure and, in between and most importantly, their indifference to the four mortals below was a sobering reminder that the world was far bigger than that defined by their own lives, their own desires and goals. The seemingly headlong plunge this journey had become was in truth but the smallest succession of steps, of no greater import than the struggles of a termite. The worlds live on, beyond us, countless unravelling tales. In his mind's eye he saw his horizons stretch out on all sides, and as they grew ever vaster he in turn saw himself as ever smaller, ever more insignificant. We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ...

Homelessness is not a choice, but rather a journey that many find themselves in.

Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere - For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year - (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber - (Though once we had journeyed down here) - Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

It’s all right if this part of your journey is not pleasant. Part of your repatterning is learning to be with unpleasantness in a healthy way. The mature and sober person knows that on some days things simply feel rotten, and that is okay. You are learning to move through distress by simply being with it, without the need to overeat or to act out in any other way.

Therefore, we must not fall asleep like other people, but we must stay awake and be sober. 1 Thessalonians 5:6

At the same time, the statistics are useful in a sobering way. They inform us that our adversary is formidable and they guard us against irrational optimism.

When journalist Blaine Harden boarded a tug to make the journey in the mid-1990s, his captain offered a sober prediction: “By the time you get to Portland, you are going to be bored shitless.

Today I share about my addiction and recovery journey as often as possible because I don't want to die all alone in a dark closet, shrouded in shame beside the decomposing skeletons I tried so desperately to hide. I want to live.

We need to do things differently beginning now. If you are a family member or friend who loves a person who has an addiction, you know the nightmare. There is the nightmare of refusing treatment. There is the nightmare of not staying in treatment. There is the nightmare of not staying sober after treatment. This list doesn’t even begin to include the many losses, the fear, the worry, the desolation. Professionals alone cannot do the job. We clearly see this truth all around us. Getting the job done requires a resource that has long been relegated to the sidelines, given no meaningful role to play in the treatment and recovery journey. This resource, as it turns out, is the most important one of all—the family.

He looked at her as if she were already one of the ugly nameless bodies in the mortuary, and with a medical man's sober, somewhat cynical mind, he saw her in front of him, stripped and sliced open. That was his revenge. He caught himself regarding the whole world in that way.

After returning home from the Vietnam War in 1967, animals became his refuge from the stresses and horrors of war. Animals had also helped him stay sober for thirty-eight years. When he first met Michael at AA, he told him, "Anyone who's on the down-and-out heals himself with animals.

The truth is,” she said shakily, “that I am scared to death of being here.” “I know you are,” he said, sobering, “but I am the last person in the world you’ll ever have to fear.” His words and his tone made the quaking in her limbs, the hammering of her heart, begin again, and Elizabeth hastily drank a liberal amount of her wine, praying it would calm her rioting nerves. As if he saw her distress, he smoothly changed the topic. “Have you given any more thought to the injustice done Galileo?” She shook her head. “I must have sounded very silly last night, going on about how wrong it was to bring him up before the Inquisition. It was an absurd thing to discuss with anyone, especially a gentleman.” “I thought it was a refreshing alternative to the usual insipid trivialities.” “Did you really?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes searching his with a mixture of disbelief and hope, unaware that she was being neatly distracted from her woes and drawn into a discussion she’d find easier. “I did.” “I wish society felt that way.” He grinned sympathetically. “How long have you been required to hide the fact that you have a mind?” “Four weeks,” she admitted, chuckling at his phrasing. “You cannot imagine how awful it is to mouth platitudes to people when you’re longing to ask them about things they’ve seen and things they know. If they’re male, they wouldn’t tell you, of course, even if you did ask.” “What would they say?” he teased. “They would say,” she said wryly, “that the answer would be beyond a female’s comprehension-or that they fear offending my tender sensibilities.” “What sorts of questions have you been asking?” Her eyes lit up with a mixture of laughter and frustration. “I asked Sir Elston Greeley, who had just returned from extensive travels, if he had happened to journey to the colonies, and he said that he had. But when I asked him to describe to me how the natives looked and how they lived, he coughed and sputtered and told me it wasn’t at all ‘the thing’ to discuss ‘savages’ with a female, and that I’d swoon if he did.” “Their appearance and living habits depend upon their tribe,” Ian told her, beginning to answer her questions. “Some of the tribes are ‘savage’ by our standards, not theirs, and some of the tribes are peaceful by any standards…” Two hours flew by as Elizabeth asked him questions and listened in fascination to stories of places he had seen, and not once in all that time did he refuse to answer or treat her comments lightly. He spoke to her like an equal and seemed to enjoy it whenever she debated an opinion with him. They’d eaten lunch and returned to the sofa; she knew it was past time for her to leave, and yet she was loath to end their stolen afternoon.

There is a vast difference between being a Christian and being a disciple. The difference is commitment. Motivation and discipline will not ultimately occur through listening to sermons, sitting in a class, participating in a fellowship group, attending a study group in the workplace or being a member of a small group, but rather in the context of highly accountable, relationally transparent, truth-centered, small discipleship units. There are twin prerequisites for following Christ - cost and commitment, neither of which can occur in the anonymity of the masses. Disciples cannot be mass produced. We cannot drop people into a program and see disciples emerge at the end of the production line. It takes time to make disciples. It takes individual personal attention. Discipleship training is not about information transfer, from head to head, but imitation, life to life. You can ultimately learn and develop only by doing. The effectiveness of one's ministry is to be measured by how well it flourishes after one's departure. Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well. If there are no explicit, mutually agreed upon commitments, then the group leader is left without any basis to hold people accountable. Without a covenant, all leaders possess is their subjective understanding of what is entailed in the relationship. Every believer or inquirer must be given the opportunity to be invited into a relationship of intimate trust that provides the opportunity to explore and apply God's Word within a setting of relational motivation, and finally, make a sober commitment to a covenant of accountability. Reviewing the covenant is part of the initial invitation to the journey together. It is a sobering moment to examine whether one has the time, the energy and the commitment to do what is necessary to engage in a discipleship relationship. Invest in a relationship with two others for give or take a year. Then multiply. Each person invites two others for the next leg of the journey and does it all again. Same content, different relationships. The invitation to discipleship should be preceded by a period of prayerful discernment. It is vital to have a settled conviction that the Lord is drawing us to those to whom we are issuing this invitation. . If you are going to invest a year or more of your time with two others with the intent of multiplying, whom you invite is of paramount importance. You want to raise the question implicitly: Are you ready to consider serious change in any area of your life? From the outset you are raising the bar and calling a person to step up to it. Do not seek or allow an immediate response to the invitation to join a triad. You want the person to consider the time commitment in light of the larger configuration of life's responsibilities and to make the adjustments in schedule, if necessary, to make this relationship work. Intentionally growing people takes time. Do you want to measure your ministry by the number of sermons preached, worship services designed, homes visited, hospital calls made, counseling sessions held, or the number of self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus? When we get to the shore's edge and know that there is a boat there waiting to take us to the other side to be with Jesus, all that will truly matter is the names of family, friends and others who are self initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus because we made it the priority of our lives to walk with them toward maturity in Christ. There is no better eternal investment or legacy to leave behind.

Man may not be the colossus some secular spirits would have him be, armed with the strength and wisdom of the gods, but he has partaken of ambrosia. He has squinted trough the veil and seen just enough of divinity to measure himself by it. The Humanist knows both the strengths and the frailties of man. He strives. But he knows the bounds of his striving....... Visions and ideals need a path, a way, a roadmap people can use as to arrive at those better, more permanent things that the wise are always seeing dimly whenever they strained their eyes. So man turned a mirror on himself, looked soberly, and-one day-began to write accounts of the discoveries made on the grandest odyssey of them all: the journey to the core of the human mind and soul. The grateful among us read them.

It was a sober lesson for President Kennedy—that in a dangerous world, the perception of weak American leadership can embolden our enemies to take aggressive action. Khrushchev came away with the opinion that the new American president was weak and inexperienced, while President Kennedy, in an interview with James Reston of the New York Times, said the summit meeting had been “the roughest thing in my life.

The war against the dragon is not, therefore, a war against a physical monster, like a dinosaur, but a battle against the wickedness we encounter in our everyday lives. We all face our daily dragons and we must all defend ourselves from them and hopefully slay them. The sobering reality is that we must either fight the dragons that we encounter in life or become dragons ourselves. There is no “comfortable” alternative.

This is not another story of some street rat getting sober or “putting his life together.” I didn’t put my life together, God did. Every time I tried to put my own life together, I made things worse. No, I am not the protagonist of this story—God is; from page one, until the day I die. He has always been the hero, He has always brought the hope. My story was written by and centers around the God who restores, redeems, and makes all things new.

When a blind man gets his sight back, he says "I am a divine seer, an oracle." With the excitement of the change he's a little drunk. A drunk becoming sober is very different from the ecstatic change that comes in the living presence of an enlightened one. There's no way to say how that is, even if Abu ibn Sina were here. Only by the great Names, or by meditation inside music that plays without instruments, can coverings be lifted. Not by sermons or mental effort. One who tries to do that will cut off his hand with his famous sword. This is all metaphoric: there is no covering or hand. It's like the country saying, Yeah, if my aunt had testicles, she'd be my uncle. It's what-if talking: the distance from words to living is a journey of a hundred thousand years, but don't be discouraged! It can happen any moment. It takes thirty-five hundred years to get to Saturn, but Saturnine qualities are constantly here making us solemn and serious. Influence goes the other way too. An enlightened master, which is to say the inner nature of each of us, is continually affecting the universe. Philosophers say a human being is the universe in samll, but it is more true that the essence of a human is the whole from which the cosmos grew. It looks as if fruit grows from a branch, but growth comes more truly from the gardener's hope and the work of sowing the seed that grew inside the fruit. The tree of the universe grows out of the fruit and its seed, even though in form the tree bears the fruit.

I’ve sat at the piano for hours already, looking for lyrics and melodies, but everything sounds the same and I feel as uninspired as ever. Does it mean I’m finished? A more sobering thought: if I’m finished, would I miss it? But the truth is, I’ve been here before. Many times. We all have. So how do we find the faith to press on? Remember. Remember, Hebrew children, who you once were in Egypt. Remember the altars set up along the way to remind yourselves that you made the journey and God rescued you from sword and famine, from chariots and pestilence, that once you were there, but now you are here. It happened. Our memories are fallible, residing in that most complex and mysterious organ in the human body (and therefore the known universe), capable of being suppressed, manipulated, altered, but also profoundly powerful and able to transport a person to a place fifty years ago all because of a whiff of your grandfather’s cologne or an old book or the salty air. As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. Remember with every sip of wine that we shared this meal, you and I. Remember. So I look at the last album, the last book, and am forced to admit that I didn’t know anymore then than I do now. Every song is an Ebenezer stone, evidence of God’s faithfulness. I just need to remember. Trust is crucial. So is self-forgetfulness and risk and a measure of audacity. And now that I think about it, there’s also wonder, insight, familiarity with Scripture, passion, a good night’s sleep, breakfast (preferably an egg sandwich), an encouraging voice, diligence, patience. I need silence. Privacy. Time—that’s what I need: more time. But first I need a vacation, because I’ve been really grinding away at this other stuff and my mental cache is full. A deadline would be great. I work best with deadlines, and maybe some bills piling up. Some new guitar strings would help, and a nice candle. And that’s all I need, in the words of Steve Martin’s The Jerk. This is the truth: all I really need is a guitar, some paper, and discipline. If only I would apply myself.

Now our partnership is dissolved, I feel so peculiar: As if I had been on a drunk since I was born And suddenly now, and for the first time, am cold sober, With all my unanswered wishes and unwashed days Stacked up all around my life ; as if through the ages I had dreamed About some tremendous journey I was taking, Sketching imaginary landscapes, chasms and cities, Cold walls, hot spaces, wild mouths, defeated backs, Jotting down fictional notes on secrets overheard In theatres and privies, banks and mountain inns, And now, in my oId age, I wake, and this journey really exists, And I have actually to take it, inch by inch, Alone and on foot, without a cent in my pocket, Through a universe where time is not foreshortened, No animals talk, and there is neither floating nor flying.

All the substances that are the main drugs of abuse today originate in natural plant products and have been known to human beings for thousands of years. Opium, the basis of heroin, is an extract of the Asian poppy Papaver somniferum. Four thousand years ago, the Sumerians and Egyptians were already familiar with its usefulness in treating pain and diarrhea and also with its powers to affect a person’s psychological state. Cocaine is an extract of the leaves of Erythroxyolon coca, a small tree that thrives on the eastern slopes of the Andes in western South America. Amazon Indians chewed coca long before the Conquest, as an antidote to fatigue and to reduce the need to eat on long, arduous mountain journeys. Coca was also venerated in spiritual practices: Native people called it the Divine Plant of the Incas. In what was probably the first ideological “War on Drugs” in the New World, the Spanish invaders denounced coca’s effects as a “delusion from the devil.” The hemp plant, from which marijuana is derived, first grew on the Indian subcontinent and was christened Cannabis sativa by the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It was also known to ancient Persians, Arabs and Chinese, and its earliest recorded pharmaceutical use appears in a Chinese compendium of medicine written nearly three thousand years ago. Stimulants derived from plants were also used by the ancient Chinese, for example in the treatment of nasal and bronchial congestion. Alcohol, produced by fermentation that depends on microscopic fungi, is such an indelible part of human history and joy making that in many traditions it is honoured as a gift from the gods. Contrary to its present reputation, it has also been viewed as a giver of wisdom. The Greek historian Herodotus tells of a tribe in the Near East whose council of elders would never sustain a decision they made when sober unless they also confirmed it under the influence of strong wine. Or, if they came up with something while intoxicated, they would also have to agree with themselves after sobering up. None of these substances could affect us unless they worked on natural processes in the human brain and made use of the brain’s innate chemical apparatus. Drugs influence and alter how we act and feel because they resemble the brain’s own natural chemicals. This likeness allows them to occupy receptor sites on our cells and interact with the brain’s intrinsic messenger systems. But why is the human brain so receptive to drugs of abuse? Nature couldn’t have taken millions of years to develop the incredibly intricate system of brain circuits, neurotransmitters and receptors that become involved in addiction just so people could get “high” to escape their troubles or have a wild time on a Saturday night. These circuits and systems, writes a leading neuroscientist and addiction researcher, Professor Jaak Panksepp, must “serve some critical purpose other than promoting the vigorous intake of highly purified chemical compounds recently developed by humans.” Addiction may not be a natural state, but the brain regions it subverts are part of our central machinery of survival.

Post-Rehab Advice: 5 Things to Do After Getting Out of Rehab Getting yourself into rehab is not the easiest thing to do, but it is certainly one of the most important things you can ever do for your well-being. However, your journey to self-healing does not simply end on your last day at rehab. Now that you have committed your self to sobriety and wellness, the next step is maintaining the new life you have built. To make sure that you are on the right track, here are some tips on what you should do as soon as you get back home from treatment. 1. Have a Game Plan Most people are encouraged to leave rehab with a proper recovery plan. What’s next for you? Envision how you want yourself to be after the inpatient treatment. This is a crucial part of the entire recovery process since it will be easier to determine the next phase of treatment you need. 2. Build Your New Social Life Finishing rehab opens endless opportunities for you. Use it to put yourself out in the world and maybe even pursue a new passion in life. Keep in mind that there are a lot of alcohol- and drug-free activities that offer a social and mental outlet. Meet new friends by playing sports, taking a class or volunteering. It is also a good opportunity for you to have sober friends who can help you through your recovery. 3. Keep Yourself Busy One of the struggles after rehab is finding purpose. Your life in recovery will obviously center on trying to stay sober. To remain sober in the long term, you must have a life that’s worth living. What drives you? Begin finding your purpose by trying out things that make you productive and satisfied at the same time. Get a new job, do volunteer work or go back to school. Try whatever is interesting for you. 4. Pay It Forward As a person who has gone through rehab, you are in the perfect place to help those who are in the early stages of recovery. Join a support group and do not be afraid to tell your story. Reaching out to other recovering individuals will also help keep your mind off your own struggles, while being an inspiration to others. 5. Get Help If You’re Still Struggling Research proves that about half of those in recovery will relapse, usually within the treatment’s first few months. However, these numbers do not necessarily mean that rehab is a waste of time. Similar to those with physical disabilities who need continuous therapy, individuals recovering from addiction also require ongoing support to stay clean and sober. Are you slipping back to your old ways? Do not let pride or shame take control of your mind. Life throws you a curveball sometimes, and slipping back to old patterns does not mean you are hopeless. Be sure to have a sober friend, family, therapist or sponsor you could trust and call in case you are struggling. Remember that building a drug- and alcohol-free life is no walk in the park, but you will likely get through it with the help of those who are dear to you.

Trekking through prison history was a sobering expedition, leaving me feeling as if I’d encountered some insidious, and very expensive, worldwide plot.

But most of us have not had much training in waiting—or at least not enough to prepare us to help others wait in times when they feel highly threatened. Richard Rohr calls this waiting place “liminal space”; liminal comes from the Latin word limina, which means threshold. Liminal space, the place of waiting, is a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be but where the biblical God is always leading them. It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run . . . anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing. In solitude we learn to wait on God for our own life so that when our leadership brings us to the place where the only option for us as a people is to wait on God, we believe it all the way down to the bottom of our being. Because we have met God in the waiting place (rather than running away or giving in to panic or deceiving ourselves into thinking things are better than they are), we are able to stand firm and believe God in a way that makes it possible for others to follow suit. It is a sobering thing to ask ourselves this question: Have I learned enough about how to wait on God in my own life to be able to call others to wait when that is what’s truly needed? Have I done enough spiritual journeying to lead people on this part of their journey?

I believe no one can really avoid periods of self- examination as we journey down the sober path.  And that’s healthy. But just remember, if you are constantly checking the rear-view mirror, you will miss the beautiful scenery.

I’ve never had such mixed-up feelings about anyone. I don’t understand him. Tonight in bed, he—” “Wait,” Leo said. “Some things are better discussed between sisters. I’m sure this is one of them. We’ll reach Ramsay House by morning, and you can ask Amelia anything you like.” “I don’t think she would know anything about this.” “Why not? She’s a married woman.” “Yes, but it’s . . . well . . . a masculine problem.” Leo blanched. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, either. I don’t have masculine problems. In fact, I don’t even like saying the phrase ‘masculine problems.’ ” “Oh.” Crestfallen, Poppy pulled a lap blanket over herself. “Damn it. What exactly are we calling a ‘masculine problem’? Did he have trouble running the flag up? Or did it fall to half-staff?” “Do we have to speak about this metaphorically, or—” “Yes,” Leo said firmly. “All right. He . . .” Poppy frowned in concentration as she searched for the right words, “. . . left me while the flag was still flying.” “Was he drunk?” “No.” “Did you do or say something to make him leave?” “Just the opposite. I asked him to stay, and he wouldn’t.” Shaking his head, Leo rummaged in a side compartment beside his seat and swore. “Where the blazes is my liquor? I told the servants to stock the carriage with drink for the journey. I’m going to fire the bloody lot of them.” “There’s water, isn’t there?” “Water is for washing, not drinking.” He muttered something about an evil conspiracy to keep him sober, and sighed. “One can only guess as to Rutledge’s motivations. It’s not easy for a man to stop in the middle of lovemaking. It puts us in a devil of a temper.

Dear David, thank you so much for your painstakingly meticulous writing and this impressive labour of love you have shared with us. You are a troubadour, guide, poet, sage and companion on an incredibly fantastic yet humbling and sobering journey through many realms, without and within." - Jason Crooks, Amazon customer

I recall that in planning my first European journey I had soberly hoped in two years to trace the entire pattern of human excellence as we passed from one country to another, in the shrines popular affection had consecrated to the saints, in the frequented statues erected to heroes, and in the "worn blasonry of funeral brasses" - an illustration that when we are young we all long for those mountaintops upon which we may soberly stand and dream of our own ephemeral and uncertain attempts at righteousness.

If the journey of study and reading cannot change and enhance the character and behaviour, towards disciplined and sober life and career, remains unworthy and odious.

Sometimes the relationships would help me keep sober, but whenever a relationship failed, it always caused me to relapse harder and fall further than before. Sometimes a failed relationship would send me scrounging for drugs in an attempt to numb the pain. Other times, it would send me to clubs or raves, looking for rebound girls to put a band-aid over the blow to my ego and self-esteem.

They were enough to get me mostly sober and remotely successful, but I still felt little purpose in life. The only thing I could deduce was that since I was focused only on the physical, my healing was not holistic.

I can’t stay sober just depending on myself, because I change too much. The same with other people. I cannot let my sobriety depend on them, because they change too.

It is a sobering thing to ask ourselves this question: Have I learned enough about how to wait on God in my own life to be able to call others to wait when that is what's truly needed? Have I done enough spiritual journeying to lead people on this part of their journey?

For the new monastic that is clearly not an option. She is required to do the hard work of bringing her personal philosophy and intellectual framework into the light, working on it and merging it with the wisdom of her heart, stretching it, molding it, and making it explicit so that it can function as a road leading her into a life of continual growth and spiritual maturity, allowing her unique talents to flower as benefactions to the whole. In particular, because the new monastic is often creating an individualized framework for her journey, her responsibility for this task becomes much greater. In a certain sense, when she simply relies on a framework given from a religious tradition, she may have the support and guidance of thousands of years of reflective thought and careful cultivation to lean on. This can be a tremendous support. The new monastic must soberly assess these frameworks and the support and guidance they offer, but must give primal credence to that which is arising in her own heart and the living, synthesizing presence of Sophia. In the next section we show why we believe that this personalizing of spiritual frameworks is a necessary step in bringing forth our unity as a human family.

I fully appreciate that just the mere process of *thinking* about taking this step in your life may cause you to break out in cold sweats—it did for us as well and we really wanted to do it! It’s sobering to even consider doing something of this magnitude, something that most people, on balance, would never attempt.

The journey to faith is the most marvelous and sobering of all journeys, for the transformation of one’s heart transforms the questions one asks, the values one holds, the world one perceives, and the life one lives.

The sober realization of being all alone by myself in the air for the first time didn’t hit me until I leveled off at pattern altitude on the downwind leg for the first touch-and-go; that was when I looked down and saw Grocci, now a small speck, 800 feet below. He was sitting in the grass next to the runway looking up at me, which caused a brief sensation of panic." (Page 201)

My previous experiences had taught me that when God leads, the journey does not necessarily have to be easy or devoid of obstacles. We have an enemy, the devil, who would do all to oppose and if possible, derail the will of God in our lives. That is why we are admonished to be on the alert at all times: Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. -1 Peter 5:8

This last war had sobered us to certain realities. The Holocaust, if nothing else, taught us that we could never again allow others to define for us who we are. The Jewish people would at long last create an image built on strength, resolve, respect, and self-determination. For as long as we stayed in Europe, living in DP camps, refused entrance to nations all over the world, and living without dignity, we would remain Hitler’s victims. We were tired of being victims and survivors.We wanted to be creators and contributors, fathers and mothers. I

Suleika knows that she is only a passing moment, the crest of a wave or the hem of a cloud, but she is soberly content to be, do an instant, the embodiment of that flow.

But, behind this almost abnormal excitement and intoxication, I realise another sober self, coolly observing everything I do. Then the world seems to belong to me, and the single moment of intensely concentrated meaning is unforgettable.

Dr. Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich from Fuller Seminary spent decades analyzing the data of thousands of Christians' lives, searching for a developmental process by which we become more like Jesus over our lifetimes. They identified a six-stage spiritual development theory: The Critical Journey - Stages of Faith Stage 1: Recognition of God Stage 2: Life of Discipleship Stage 3: Productive Life [The Wall] Stage 4: Journey Inward Stage 5: Journey Outward Stage 6: Life of Love After watching this process unfold over many lives, they made this sobering observation: Most Christians never mature beyond stage three, which is a very basic level of maturity; very few reach their full potential in Christ.

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Continue your recovery journey in our womens sober living in Denver. Our inaugural location in the South Denver Suburb of Centennial is located a short distance from many local business, spiritual centers, support groups, and activities.

As I sat on that rock, I imagined that watching the flow of the river was like watching the passing of life. If one is inside the river, one is greatly affected by it, but if one sits on the bank, one can observe it with detachment. Mother Ganges teaches that if we learn to be detached from our ego and the flurry of the mind, senses, and the world around us, and observe life with a sober disposition, we gain wisdom.

Ignoring Problems Has Never Solved Any. Approach Them With A Sober Mind, Then You'll Have Begun The Solution Journey.

Jonathan Layne, a resilient figure embodying the power of transformation. At the helm of Providence House and Endeavor Sober Living, he's crafting opportunities for recovery in Minot, North Dakota. His passion lies in helping those who seek a path away from addiction, and he's succeeding through his dedication. With a heart for pregnant women and parenting mothers, he's opening doors to a new facility that promises a brighter future. Jonathan's journey from the oilfield to sobriety advocate is an inspiration that echoes through the community.

Getting sober isn’t a goal, it’s a journey. YOUR journey.

In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle says, “Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.

Some words are too sober to be the driver designated to help me, reach the destination of my destiny.

This is a story that begins in Summer, because it is the type of thing that can only happen when the sun is too hot, the nights are too long, and your heart rules everything. Just north of the Black Mountains, there exists a town called Hay-on-Wye. It is a town populated by more books then people. Which is, perhaps why, it was the only place that could have fashioned a modern fairytale such as the one that happened on a summer’s night in August. A girl got drunk at a pub. Trying to forget someone. A boy joined her, matching her drink for drink. Trying to forget responsibility. In a flurry of laughter, false bravado, perfume, and charming smiles they found themselves vacationing in the others world for brief respite. They were a rest from the troubles of their own worlds. Where family, money, obligation, and responsibility tormented the bright, young things like a dementor waiting to suck joy at every step. Neither was certain if it was the booze that made them have stars in their eyes, or if the stars came before. But they shared a moment spurred on by Ed Sheeran playing over pub speakers, messy sheets, and tangled limbs as most modern English love stories are. In the morning, they woke up, sobered, and all that was left was a poem scribbled on a pillow by the girl for the boy. It would have all been forgotten, if not for the stars, and that Ed Sheeran music is designed for soulmates and happy endings. The stars saw how the couple shined for each other that night, and knew they’d make the world shine together. So, the stars did what they do best. They shined down on them, starting their journey back to each other knowing they’d need the light through the dark times to come. -Royals and Rebels: Love and War, book 2 only on Dreame

Someone’s gotta do it. No one’s gonna do it. So I’ll do it. Your honor, I rise in defense of drunken astronauts. You’ve all heard the reports, delivered in scandalized tones on the evening news or as guaranteed punch lines for the late-night comics, that at least two astronauts had alcohol in their systems before flights. A stern and sober NASA has assured an anxious nation that this matter, uncovered by a NASA-commissioned study, will be thoroughly looked into and appropriately dealt with. To which I say: Come off it. I know NASA has to get grim and do the responsible thing, but as counsel for the defense—the only counsel for the defense, as far as I can tell—I place before the jury the following considerations: Have you ever been to the shuttle launchpad? Have you ever seen that beautiful and preposterous thing the astronauts ride? Imagine it’s you sitting on top of a 12-story winged tube bolted to a gigantic canister filled with 2 million liters of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Then picture your own buddies—the “closeout crew”—who met you at the pad, fastened your emergency chute, strapped you into your launch seat, sealed the hatch and waved smiling to you through the window. Having left you lashed to what is the largest bomb on planet Earth, they then proceed 200 feet down the elevator and drive not one, not two, but three miles away to watch as the button is pressed that lights the candle that ignites the fuel that blows you into space. Three miles! That’s how far they calculate they must go to be beyond the radius of incineration should anything go awry on the launchpad on which, I remind you, these insanely brave people are sitting. Would you not want to be a bit soused? Would you be all aflutter if you discovered that a couple of astronauts—out of dozens—were mildly so? I dare say that if the standards of today’s fussy flight surgeons had been applied to pilots showing up for morning duty in the Battle of Britain, the signs in Piccadilly would today be in German. Cut these cowboys some slack. These are not wobbly Northwest Airlines pilots trying to get off the runway and steer through clouds and densely occupied airspace. An ascending space shuttle, I assure you, encounters very little traffic. And for much of liftoff, the astronaut is little more than spam in a can—not pilot but guinea pig. With opposable thumbs, to be sure, yet with only one specific task: to come out alive. And by the time the astronauts get to the part of the journey that requires delicate and skillful maneuvering—docking with the international space station, outdoor plumbing repairs in zero-G—they will long ago have peed the demon rum into their recycling units.

Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8 If you're listening to the roar, you're going to miss the whisper.

Shiro can’t accuse me of looking out the windows all the time anymore because they have all been shuttered.  Watching the thick, boron nitride nanotube shutters slide down and lock into place over the big lounge windows was somewhat sobering.  But it’s not the least of what’s to come. Tonight we will enter our crew quarters where we will be stuck for six days while the space station performs the perihelion maneuver.  We will come within four solar radii—that’s a blistering 2,784,000 kilometers from the sun—and will accelerate to a mind-blowing speed of 341,546 kilometers per hour.  The maneuver itself will last just over twenty-nine hours as we travel all the way around the back side of the sun, but we need to be shielded from the worst of the solar radiation both on the approach and the departure. All the numbers make it sound simple, but the fact of the matter is this is by far the most dangerous part of our journey.  Despite NASA’s best efforts to shield the spacecraft, it very well might not have been enough.  We will be traveling around a star, an unbelievably immense body of power and energy producing the might of six trillion nuclear bombs every second.  (I would start thinking of myself as a bit of a brainiac, but I only know this because Commander Sykes told me.)  With flares and coronal mass ejections (some of which occur once every five days or more), we could easily be obliterated by an incoming blast of superheated gas.

You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Since you were a little girl, you’ve brought light into my life. You’ve always been able to calm me. You know that. I know you know that, Junie. You came back into my life for a reason. You’re my journey to being a better man. I’ll stop drinkin’ and druggin’. I’ll do it for you. I can’t live like this no more. Hear me, listen to me when I tell you—I’ll get clean and sober for you.

Serenity is one of the most important gifts we have at our disposal. It is readily available to us if we’re willing to take a few simple steps, beginning with prayer. Serenity has been proven to:  Help us to make better decisions  Clear our minds of regret and anger  Release resentment  Help us stay calm in most situations  Dissolve sorrow and remorse  Make us more enjoyable and approachable  Help us sleep better  Open the channels to God or Spirit