Stranger in a Strange Place

                I was warned that hanging out with the wrong crowd could lead to a loss of faith. Like a balloon, my faith was supposedly a mysterious invisible pressure given to me by Heavenly Father, perfectly sealed off from the sharpness of the world, sequestered in the protective hands of my family and my Mormon community in Layton, Utah.   These were my safeguards, seemingly firm to the touch, these hands were to guide and hold my faith gingerly and tenderly for time and all eternity. My Faith Balloon type, if there are types of faith balloons, would be one of those weird, really long snake-like balloons clowns twist into shapes for children. My faith was thin, narrow, strictly purposed in structure for shaping into something else, it was clumsy and awkward if left straightened and unshaped. If I risked hanging out with the pokey people, specifically speaking Non-Mormons- the worldly people, there could...

                                                                                                                                               The Bishop's Budweiser     Most people's recovery stories include how they were first exposed to alcohol. I have heard hundreds of stories about the First Drink; usually its the odd glass of Mom's wine that was secretly sipped at Christmas, or perhaps everyone in the family was heavily drinking and so all alcohol was normalized in childhood. I find these stories fascinating and largely because I do not identify with the majority of them. Certainly,...