Club Recovery

03/15/2026

Take it from Joe Walsh: 'The Confessor'
(if you know - you know)

03/14/2026

Yesterday a woman walked in at 4 PM. No appointment. Asked if I could squeeze her in.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She showed me a photo on her phone. Numbers. Just numbers.
“392. On my wrist. Simple. Black. Can you do it now?”
I looked at her. She’d been crying. Eyes red. Hands shaking.
“Yeah, I can do it. But can I ask what 392 means?”
She sat down in my chair. Took a breath.
“It’s the number of days my daughter stayed clean before she overdosed. I found her yesterday. I want to remember she tried. That 392 days mattered.”
I didn’t know what to say. Just nodded. Started setting up.
She kept talking. Needed to talk.
“Everyone’s going to say she relapsed. That she failed. That addicts always relapse. But they won’t say she was sober for 392 days. That she went to meetings. Got a job. Started painting again. That she was my daughter again for 392 days. They’ll remember one day. The last day. But I’m going to remember 392.”
Her voice broke.
“This tattoo is proof those days existed. That she fought. That she almost made it.”
I finished the tattoo. Simple numbers. 392. On her wrist. Where she could see it every day.
She paid. Tipped way too much. Started to leave. Then turned back.
“Can I ask you something weird?”
“Anything,” I said.
“Can you keep that stencil? The 392? And if anyone ever comes in here struggling with addiction. Or losing someone to addiction. Can you offer to do this tattoo for free? Any number. However many days their person stayed clean. 10 days. 100 days. 1 day. I don’t care. Just so they know those days counted.”
She left before I could answer.
I kept the 392 stencil. Put it in a frame behind my counter. Wrote under it:
“Days of sobriety tattoos — always free. Any number. Because every day counts.”
I didn’t think anyone would take me up on it.
Three days later, a man came in. Saw the sign. Started crying.
“Can you do 1,279?”
“Absolutely. Who’s it for?”
“My brother. He was sober 1,279 days. Died in a car accident last week. Sober driver hit by a drunk driver. The irony is killing me. He fought so hard. And some stranger took him out.”
I did the tattoo for free. He hugged me for five minutes.
Word spread.
I’ve done 23 sobriety number tattoos in three weeks. Free. Every single one. 47 days. 6 days. 1,823 days. 2 days. One woman got “14 hours” tattooed.
“My son stayed clean for 14 hours before he relapsed and died. Everyone says 14 hours doesn’t count. But it does. He tried. For 14 hours he tried.”
I tattooed 14 hours on her shoulder. She sobbed the entire time.
When I finished, she looked at it and whispered, “Now everyone will know he tried.”
Yesterday someone came in and asked for “0 days.”
I was confused. “Zero?”
He nodded.
“My daughter never got clean. She tried to quit so many times. Went to rehab four times. But never made it past a few hours before using again. She died at 23. Everyone says she didn’t try. But she did. She tried so hard. Zero days sober but a million attempts. Can you tattoo 0 with a little infinity symbol?”
Because her attempts were infinite even if her days weren’t.
I cried while doing that tattoo. Zero with an infinity symbol. For a girl who never stopped trying even though she never succeeded.
A teenager came in two days ago. Seventeen years old. With his dad.
“Can you do 91 days? For me. I’m 91 days sober. I want to remember.”
I looked at his dad. Dad nodded.
“He asked for this. I’m proud of him.”
I did the tattoo. 91 on his forearm. When I finished, the kid stared at it.
“Now when I want to use, I’ll see this. I’ll remember I made it to 91. I can make it to 92.”
His dad paid. Tipped $200.
“You’re saving lives with ink,” he said. “Keep doing this.”
The kid comes back every 30 days. I add a small tally mark next to his 91. He’s up to 151 days now. Five tally marks. He’s going to make it.
The original woman came back yesterday. The 392 tattoo.
“I wanted to show you something,” she said.
She pulled up her sleeve. Another number.
“1.”
Just the number 1.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
She smiled through tears.
“One year since my daughter died. One year I’ve survived without her. Someone told me I should get a tattoo for my own sobriety. From grief. From giving up. I’ve been sober from ending my own life for one year. Because of this.”
She pointed to 392.
“Every time I wanted to give up, I looked at this. If she could fight for 392 days, I could fight for one more. So I’m marking my days now too. One year. 365 days of choosing to stay.”
I have a wall now. Photos of every sobriety number tattoo I’ve done. 47 tattoos in two months. Numbers ranging from 14 hours to 6,247 days.
Every single one free.
Every single one a story of someone who tried. Who fought. Who stayed clean for as long as they could. Some made it. Some didn’t.
But every number matters.
Because addiction isn’t about the day someone relapses. It’s about all the days they didn’t.
And those days deserve to be remembered. Marked. Honored.
I started this because a grieving mother asked me to remember 392 days. Now I’m remembering hundreds of days. Thousands of days. Marking them in ink on the skin of people who refuse to forget.
Every number tells me the same thing:
Trying counts. Fighting counts. Even if you lose, the fight counted.
I’m a tattoo artist. But these aren’t just tattoos. They’re monuments. Proof that someone tried. And in a world that only remembers the last day, I’m making sure we remember all the days before it.

03/05/2026

03/02/2026

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect.
If you plant an apple seed, you don’t a get a mango tree.
If we practice hatred or greed, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly.
If we practice awareness or loving-kindness, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly.
We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate.
We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence.
~Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield

03/02/2026

Coppied from another group:
The Real Alcoholic Is a Dying Breed in Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is increasingly full of hard drinkers — not real alcoholics.
People who drank too much.
People who got into trouble.
People who had consequences.
People who needed to stop… and did.
And now they’re sitting in rooms designed for people who cannot stop, giving advice to the very people the programme was written for.
The hard drinker drinks heavily. Sometimes disastrously.
But when:
• the doctor gives a warning
• the partner leaves
• the job is on the line
• the court case lands
• the kids stop speaking to them
They can stop or moderate.
They might need support.
They might need structure.
They might need fellowship.
But they can stop given sufficient reason.
And once they stop, they stay stopped through:
• fear
• insight
• therapy
• routine
• meetings
• willpower
And here’s the key point:
They know why they drank and they haven’t lost the power of choice.
Stress.
Trauma.
Anxiety.
Grief.
Upbringing.
Low self-esteem.
Fine.
That is not alcoholism as described in the Big Book.
The Real Alcoholic Cannot Stay Stopped.
The real alcoholic doesn’t drink because life is hard.
He drinks when life is fine.
He drinks:
• after the apology
• after the promise
• after the education
• after the therapy
• after losing everything
• after swearing on his children’s lives
• after genuinely meaning it this time
He drinks when he does not want to drink.
He drinks knowing exactly what will happen.
He drinks with full knowledge of the consequences and still cannot bring that knowledge to bear on the decision to take the first drink.
That’s alcoholism.
Not behaviour.
Not trauma.
Not poor coping skills.
A mental twist that overrides reason, coupled with a physical allergy that guarantees more will follow.
And Here’s the Problem
When hard drinkers dominate the rooms, they give advice based on their experience.
Which is useless to the real alcoholic.
They say:
• “Play the tape through.”
• “Just think about what happens.”
• “Remember your last drunk.”
• “Go to more meetings.”
• “Call someone before you pick up a drink.”
• “Work on your triggers.”
That works for someone who still has the power of choice.
The real alcoholic does not.
So now the person who cannot stop is being told to do the very things that have already failed him repeatedly:
• think harder
• remember better
• try again
• stay busy
• manage himself
Meanwhile the Big Book sits on the table, quoted, misquoted, and weaponised — usually by people who’ve never actually taken the time to dig into what it says about the real alcoholic.
Because the real alcoholic doesn’t need better coping strategies.
He needs to be disturbed around the truth of his condition.
He needs to see that:
• self-knowledge will not save him
• meetings will not save him
• fellowship will not save him
• human power will not save him
Until he reaches the point where a vital spiritual experience becomes necessary, he will continue trying to solve his alcoholic mind with his own mind.
And human solutions do not work for the real alcoholic.
That’s why AA exists.

03/01/2026

In this inaugural printing of this totally re-imagined OSCC / Club Recovery newsletter, I want to begin by acknowledging and thanking John L for his decade and a half of service producing the Club Recovery News. Many will continue to enjoy his monthly publications as he transitions into a ‘snowbird’ to take advantage of more time with family.

As you are holding this volume, you may suspect there was some Ozempic involved in the design. Like most diets, the weight and size could possibly return. Then again, there may be a complete change in lifestyle that results in a permanent shift. Those that insist there should be more meat on the bone are welcome to ‘volunteer’ to pitch in!

Never underestimate a change in lifestyle. A complete 180˚ change is hard to miss. A slower and more gradual change can be hard to detect for a time. What matters are the results. Results make an impression.

You may have heard someone say:
“The 1st Big Book the newcomer will notice is you.”
Coming in the door, I may forget just about everything I hear. But someone I see, or meet may well have a permanent impact on me.
“You could be the reason I come back.“

The same can be true over time. During my years walking this road of Happy Destiny I have observed so many different ‘characters’. I have seen miracles as someone who was walking in extreme darkness begins to understand hope and serenity are real and an awesome future is not just possible but obviously within reach for all.

The best way to observe results and outcomes is by watching those with the light shining bright in their eyes time after time. People whose message and love of others seem set in stone and impossible to miss. Often, we continue to see, hear and feel the impact of these soldiers for many years after they are gone.

OSCC will begin to add art to the main 12-step meeting room. Along with our history storyboards, you will notice images in memory of friends that are gone. Their physical life is over, but the impact and wake they left in our hearts still remains.
Their voices ECHO!

Dan M – OSCC eDirector

You can help design & sponsor an ‘ECHO’ canvas – contact club@oscch.org for information.

https://clubrecovery.org/news/2026/new.pdf

02/27/2026

https://ncintergroup.com/event/sponsorship-workshop/

Multiple Speaker – Interactive Discussion – Potluck Lunch

02/03/2026

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

01/30/2026

I have my top ten reasons why sobriety is the right plan.

Make that top '11' reasons!

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What about beer made with bear p**p?

Columbia Sportswear and Breakside Brewing, both based in Portland, Oregon, are teaming up for the Super Bowl to create exactly that — a beer made with bear p**p.

Dubbed “Nature Calls,” Columbia said the beer is likely a first in brewing history.

It’s a likely first, Columbia Sportswear said.