Dissonance Collaborates with "Passenger Recovery" in Detroit

The two nonprofits look to help build a national network of artist-support organizations

One of our dreams at Dissonance is to establish a national network of like-minded organizations committed to helping artists maintain wellness, share their experiences with mental health and addiction recovery, and advocate for others. 

We are doing that work in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and, to some degree, in greater Minnesota. Now, we are looking to collaborate with other individuals and organizations pursuing similar missions.

One such organization is Passenger Recovery, a nonprofit founded by Christopher Tait, keyboardist for indie rock vets Electric Six. We met with Chris when his band's tour brought him to St. Paul for a recent show (opened by our friend Mark Mallman) at the venerable Turf Club. 

Sober Green Room Now Available in Twin Cities, Detroit

We whisked Chris away from the venue for a sober green room experience at the home of Jordan Hansen, a Dissonance supporter and blogger. We were actually testing out Chris's own idea. Passenger Recovery has a dedicated green-room space in downtown Detroit, available to any sober touring artist. After talking to Chris, we have decided to begin offering the same to artists traveling through Minneapolis-St. Paul, using a variety of spaces available through our local network. Chris had been on the road for a couple of weeks when we met, and he noted -- as others have to him -- how wonderful it was to get away from the van and the venue for a refreshing wellness break. 

New Tool to Find Support Meetings on the Road

For us, the time with Chris also provided an opportunity to discuss Passenger Recovery's new support-meeting finder called Compass. It's an innovative, GPS-enabled tool to help traveling artists locate Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Refuge Recovery (Buddhist-inspired) support meetings. The Compass database includes thousands of individual meetings, is growing every day, and likely will be expanded to include other types of mutual aid meetings as well. We’re grateful that Chris and his partner -- Electric Six bassist Matthew Tompkins -- did us the favor of making Minneapolis-St. Paul the second metro area to get populated, after Detroit. Check out the beta version of the tool and find a meeting near you, wherever you are.

On our Resources-Tools web page, we now have a link to Compass. The page also includes links for artists to request sober green rooms through us for Minneapolis-St. Paul and through Passenger Recovery for Detroit.

As we think about our dream of establishing a national network of organizations like ours, the immediate aim is to work with Passenger Recovery to create a northern corridor of artist support from Detroit to Minneapolis. We are now seeking like-minded organizations in Milwaukee and Chicago to fill in the major gaps. 

We are also beginning to establish relationships with other more far-flung organizations like the SIMS Foundation in Austin, Texas, and the BTD Foundation in New Orleans. If you are involved in such an organization, or know others who are, please contact us.  Let's build this national network/collective/community together.

Chris Tait, Jordan Hansen

The Sober Green Room at Jordan Hansen's place in St. Paul

Chris Tait, Jordan Hansen

Jeremiah Gardner, Matthew Tompkins, Chris Tait

Chris Tait, Jordan Hansen

Chris Tait, Jordan Hansen

Jeremiah Gardner, Chris Tait

Don’t die. Be Kind. Be Easy. What’s Next?

By Carl Atiya Swanson

Feb. 7, 2008.

I wrote this for the 10-year anniversary of leaving treatment. It's been just over a decade now since I began moving through life without alcohol or other drugs.

I had been trying to put something down about the work and the process, but mostly I started thinking about people who have made it possible, song lyrics and riffs, and weird quotes and phrases that have run through my head in doing the work.

Don’t die.

Thanks to Stacy, Rosanne, Mark, Karen, Ted, JoAnn, Hannah, Bekah, Kathy and Doug ... for making sure I didn't die. Sadly, others did along the way, and I remember their names: Amanda, Omar, Dan.

“I'm an alcoholic. I don't have one drink. I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this?”
– Leo McGarry, The West Wing

There’s always work to do. I've had an enormous amount of privilege in my sobriety and recovery, starting with the fact that I got to go to treatment and access the health care I needed. I also come from an educated family and have degrees myself. I have people who loved and continue to love and support me. I have had jobs and homes to go to. I have the ability to choose to leave triggering locations; I haven't depended on being in a bar for work. I have choices about meetings to attend and resources and networks to help me build connections and social capital. To be sober is to be continually humbled and compassionate, to be deeply grateful.

Be kind.

Thanks to Natalie, Colin, Lizzie, Eric, Kristina, Shawna, Brian, Heidi, Karen, Kathleen, Alexandra, Chavis, Chris, Dana, Brandon, Laura, Molly, Andy, Noah, Nikki, Michele, Naomi, Dominic, Daniel, Jun-Li, Peter, Sam, John, Caly, Dennis, Zaraawar, Nancy, Caroline, Adia, Anna, Susan, Ashley, Lindsay, Brian, Jamie, Erica, Danielle, Sarah, Jarell, Cary, Cole, Brandon, Lauren, Pa, Naaima, Josh, Kat, Matt, Ashley, Sarah, David, Ali, Jeremiah and Katy  .... for giving me work, trusting and challenging me, and opening up new possibilities.

“But there are hundreds of ways
To get through the days
There are hundreds of ways
Now you just find one.”
– Conor Oberst, Hundreds of Ways

My aunt once asked me what I put my faith in, if not God. I told her I put my faith in people. “Good Luck with that,” she said. But that’s where faith lives for me—in our capacity for wonder and creation, in our curiosity and imagination. I know I wouldn’t have made it through my youth without being an artist, and I wouldn’t be alive now without believing in others, in all of us. That conviction, and the abilities art fostered to hold conflicting ideas, process ambiguity and open myself to collaboration, contradiction and the messy nature of things—that saved me. I wouldn’t be alive without saying yes to people and feeling the joy of what we can do together.

Be easy.

Thanks to Jacob, Amy, Jake, Jayne, Jeremey, Dianne, Alexis, Carly, Laura, Blake, Hannah, Mason, Heidi, Lisa, Russ, Eric, Rachel, Tanner, Emily, Christina, Foster, Nick, Andrea, Ben, Kyle, Molly, Leslie, Jamie, Betz, Erik, Erik, Erik, Ali, Tom, Dom, Mike, Mischa, Stephen, Colin, Alexei, Stephen, Joe, Bobby, Graham, Lindsy, Scott, K. Alex, Gigi, Susannah, Jay, Joey, Pete, Janey, Christian, Johnny, Molly, Jeremy, Chastity, Will, Brian, Sam, Chantal, Sarah, Levi, Seth, Brent, Tim, Bethany and Jenny ... for letting me create, and helping you create, things we enjoy and find meaningful. Thanks for making life interesting.

“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” – Miles Davis

It takes a lifetime to become ourselves, which is what I get to pursue now. It takes the support and connection of others I have found, or who have found me—friends who walk similar paths, who go to meetings, who say the Serenity Prayer, who are making it work because they work it. It takes all the people named here, as well as all the people not named who have shaped the way and lit the path knowingly or unknowingly. I am so grateful for you, your love and what is to come. Be in touch.

What’s next?

Carl Atiya Swanson is a Dissonance Board Member.

Rediscovering an Artistic Life

By Roger P. Watts

“You ought to write a book,” is something I’ve been told most of my adult life. That’s because many people who have known me through the years have found that I have lived an interesting life full of stories that have generated both laughs and tears.

In fact, you can easily separate the two halves of my life by one day: December 19, 1987. That was the day that I didn’t drink or take any drugs for the first time in 21 years.

I began recovery as most people do with a shudder and a lot of apprehension. But that’s a story better saved for another time. For now, it is important just to say that this day was a turning point for me in my life, and I have never looked back on any time before that day with nostalgia or yearning for “the good ole days.”

Early recovery took me into a new career from the photojournalism and editing work I had been doing for a decade. I began my work in the addiction treatment field only a few months after getting sober. From that point until 2012, I worked as a front-line counselor for a variety of clinics from the East Coast to the Midwest.

But, that career is not what brings me to Dissonance.

In 2012, two significant things happened to enhance the quality of my life. I received a PhD in psychology that year and began my first university teaching assignment. But, I also reprised my earlier work as a photographer, and I have been making documentary photographs ever since.

Today, I both teach and make photographs. The teaching is also better discussed on another day. For this post, I want to talk about my artistic work history and the meaning it has in my life.

Photography was always a hobby of mine, starting in my youth as an assistant at a tiny studio on the south shore of Boston. I loved the idea of capturing images and found, through Al Davidson’s studio, the chance to make interesting and, it turned out, high-pressure photos. I became a wedding photographer for his studio and applied what he taught me about how to capture the visual memory of a bride’s biggest day. I did that throughout my senior year at college and loved just about every minute of the 40-or-so weddings I photographed.

But, I was also imbued in that year--the crucible year of 1969--with the juvenile idea that armed with a college degree I ought not “settle” for just being a photographer the rest of my life. So, I stopped taking photographs and entered the business world.

I would not pick up another camera until 12 years later! After losing the election of 1980 to Ronald Reagan, many of us who worked in the White House (I was a “press advance man” for President Carter) found ourselves out of luck and out of work. With my addiction raging at the time, I one day imagined I would take photographs of the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia. To a drug addict, this was the most reasonable thing to think -- that without gear or experience, I could do such a thing. Undaunted, I borrowed a camera, raced to Cape Canaveral on my motorcycle, shot a few rolls of Kodachrome, and found in one of my frames a picture that ended up in Newsweek magazine. At that moment, I was of the honest and deep yet delusional belief that I was about to become the world's greatest photojournalist!

Soon, of course, I found myself bartending and driving a taxi in Washington D.C., getting politicians loaded at an Irish bar, or ferrying patrons to and from the very White House where I had a security pass only months before.

Yet, despite the setbacks of being a rookie in the pressurized world of Washington photojournalism, I didn’t drown, but kept my head above the tide and became, by 1985, fairly well established with a fledgling role as a sometimes-contract photographer for the now-defunct Gamma Liaison Photo Agency out of Paris. But, still grandiose and fueled daily by alcohol and other drugs, I thought it a good idea to drop all that and become an editor with a national news weekly in Florida. It was there that I worked when I crashed my drug-addled life on that fateful day in 1987.

Fast forward to 2012. Having not shot any photos for 25 years, I decided to try my hand again at photography as a way to interpret my world for others and have a meaningful artistic life.

The first thing I did after buying a camera was search for a subject. Right away, I found that a local theater in Minneapolis, the oldest continuously operating theater in the Twin Cities, needed someone to shoot production stills for publicity and the theater’s archive. To this day, after volunteering to photograph for three seasons and dozens of plays, I still shoot the performances of the incredibly talented actors who tread the boards at the Theatre in the Round.

I have rediscovered my own art by training my lens on theirs. And, as a sober man in long-term recovery, I can finally appreciate how much that means to me.

What good fortune it is to discover, here in the Dissonance community, others who are committed to art and being well. And to sharing our stories. Perhaps we all have a book to write.

Dr. Roger P. Watts is an adjunct professor at Augsburg and Concordia universities, where he teaches psychology courses, in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Also a photographer, he is leading a campaign to produce a photo-documentary called "Beyond the Arena," a touring exhibit that would feature an intimate behind-the-scenes look at acting and live theater.

We Could be Heroes for Just One Day

By Kara W.

When I was a kid, I used to close my eyes and internalize my own death. Inside, I would dissipate, folding into sheet after sheet of darkness. Even the sheep in rows on my sheets couldn’t protect me from this paralyzing terror. I would call out to my mom just to remind myself I was alive. I am a girl. I am 9. I have a dog named Missy. I have a mom and a dad. I live in a house, in a suburb. I am in a warm bed, and I am safe.

I have always been fascinated by death because of my fear of it. One either fears that which we don’t understand or has a reverence for it. I have a mix of the two and therefore have always felt a need to push life to the limits. It is this supreme fear of death that also drives me to create. Like novelist Herman Hesse’s character Goldmund, I have an unusually strong motivation to leave a footprint on this earth.

He thought the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.   
- Herman Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

Anxiety has always been with me, along with some perceived obligation to give back to the world the gift of life, which was so freely given to me. I create for different reasons, but first is survival. Second is transmission: communicating a thought or feeling to the world that reflects my own human experience and connects it to yours. When I am not creating, I am not happy, mostly because I feel disconnected. Creating allows me to merge the inner world I protect so much with the outside world. It allows me to be in the present, to be the present.

At one time, I bought the popular myth that to create I needed an altered experience, for the doors of perception to be cleansed. And for that, I believed I needed to be intoxicated with substances.  That, of course, is the falsest belief I have ever tested over and over and over and over. The mindscapes and moods I experience sober have proven far more profound than any of the short-lived highs I once had.

Never did I dream that I would become addicted to heroin three years out of high school. Total annihilation was not part of my life plan. I moved from stealing chicken from Jewel at age 20 to hustling for cash at gas stations on the West Coast by age 22. I made it to California, but was eating out of the garbage. What a pity. No one back home in Illinois really knew; the West Coast provided a great cover. In reality, I was in a desperate survival cycle: next money, next fix, next meal, in that order. No time or energy for anything else. And, all the while, I was overwhelmed with frustration and anger at my inability to change.

Thinking back to high school, I can see a pattern in the music I liked: John Frusciante, Syd Barrett, PJ Harvey, Joni Mitchell – artists who at some point destroyed themselves with darkness or displayed it vividly in their work. Like Shakespeare once said, as an artist, you reflect nature, and my nature was that of fear-fueled destruction.

It wasn’t just the drugs. I became addicted to dying and being reborn, a thousand times over. Because isn’t it transformation that we are all after? That transformative experience where we can leave one skin for the other? Like Lazarus, I could come back from the dead. But life didn’t change. I got into a cycle that was governed by nature; I would get sober in the fall, then pick up in the winter and be full blown in my addiction by the time warm weather arrived. I did this for three years, never actually experiencing rebirth – only pauses in my self-destruction. I was stuck in a purgatory, burning until I could make a decision.

Maybe I thought chasing death would cure me of my fear of it. But it didn’t. And at some point, I became willing to try something else. For the first time in my life, I started to listen to what others told me to do. Believe me, I didn’t take all their suggestions, but enough to get me through that first door. My grandmother was an integral part of my life during this period. I lived with her after I got out of a halfway house in 2009. She was the first person to trust me, even though I stole more than $1,000 worth of quarters from her the year prior. She taught me about faith, because she was so unwavering in her own right, a straight-up Irish Catholic mother of seven. She had an underlying faith and trust in me, and that gave me courage because no one else trusted me at the time. Riding on my grandmother’s faith in me, I began to change.

I initially got sober in 2009, from heroin. But each time I would get a year sober, I would relapse on alcohol or weed. For three years I did this. It was the turning-over period, but I gradually transitioned to a life of sustained recovery in 2012. During this transitional period, I went to Africa and shot a documentary film with my friend, wrote tons of music and went back to school. I was getting my footing – learning anew about the world around me and how the God of my understanding speaks through people. I took an immense liking to blues music – the real blues music, because I could relate to it. Listening to old howlers like Son House, Johnny Lee Hooker and Blind Willy Johnson taught me how to talk to God through music. It was a great awakening. Learning how to live sober, and communicate again. I felt like a newborn babe. I began going out more than ever – playing music, really enjoying socializing, laughing and creating with other people. I discovered that creative collaboration fulfills a great need for connection and intimacy – a need I had previously neglected by isolating myself from others. I learned to have a relationship with a higher power by having relationships with other creatives and sober people. Recovery has enabled me to evolve creatively from visual art to music and film – every medium leading to the next, just as every experience and person I have met in sobriety has led me through the next door.

In recent years, I have taken my recovery even more seriously, leaning into it. I have had some tumultuous periods: periods where I could have been committed to a psych ward, but I managed through with the help of others and by creatively exorcizing my demons. Instead of picking up alcohol or other drugs and ending up in jail, I made a short film, entitled Red, about my internal fire (which was related to my intimate relations at the time.)

As humans, and artists especially, we want to be loved and understood by others. I have always had a problem with priorities, but recovery has helped me focus on what I can control – learning to love and understand others and myself. And that’s an effort that continues to require ongoing commitment. I am a relatively needy person, as it turns out, and demand an awful lot. Satisfaction and peace are elusive, but I experience them in longer stretches as time goes on. I have astral expectations for myself, and those closest to me, but am lucky to get cut down to size pretty quickly. I’m able to focus on the more important need – loving and seeking to understand my family and friends, and helping them love and understand me. Recovery has helped me see how much, in the past, I have overlooked the needs of those closest to me. I’m learning more every day one of the great paradoxical wisdoms of life – that self-love actually comes from focusing less on self. Love transforms you, and God is love as far I am concerned. If you can love, you can experience God, and that experience can push you forward. I have been transformed by love: looking for it, learning about it, losing it and finding it again.  

On occasion, I envy those who seem to have all the time in the world to devote to themselves and their art. I occasionally wish I had more time and less responsibility. But it’s clear now that such singular devotion comes with a cost – one I can no longer pay. Over time, I have come to be extremely grateful for the roots I have dug, the people I have met and the experiences we have shared. I wouldn’t be where I am, or have what I do, without them. Relationships are the plants that produce the seeds from which all else grows, including my art. Giving birth to my son in 2014 allowed me to see and appreciate the power of creation in a natural, biological sense. Though I am not necessarily a nurturing woman, I have found that motherhood suits me; it is surprisingly natural. It also has drawn my focus away from myself, which in turn has opened me to a whole new world of inspiration. I love being a mom – so much so that I now want many more children.

The great thing about being a sober artist is the endless amount of raw emotion that you may kindle.  These days, I am focusing on film work and getting out lesser-told stories that need to be told, providing a voice for the unheard. My friend and I are about to release a feature-length documentary, which is rather exciting. I also have a TV pilot swirling around in my head, inspired by the senior housing facility where I work during the day. Imagine Days of Our Lives meets the movie Cocoon! Yes, I need a lot of stimulation. I need to be constantly learning. If I get bored, I start to be destructive. It is up to me, with the support of others, to initiate the stimulation and connection I need in my life. I thrive on constant transformation, and that is a good thing. But it also requires consistent effort. I have found that recovery has guided my effort in the right direction, gently pushing me where I need to go when I am ready. I do not determine when that is, by the way; some other force is at work. Typically, I want quick results that I can physically see. And sometimes I get those results, but usually in long strides and rarely when I want them. The biggest changes for me have happened from within – subtly and quietly. Profoundly.

The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world, but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about.   
- Jonathan Harnisch

I am so grateful for those before me who have told their tales of moving beyond addiction. They are heroes to me. And I’m grateful now to share my own, and, most importantly, to have learned what they knew – that to defeat the fear of death, we must participate in life. I am a hero just for today.

Kara is a mother, musician and filmmaker. She works and advocates for seniors on the North Side of Chicago, and loves animals and being outside with her family.

Photo is John Duncan's painting, “The Riders of the Sidhe” from 1911.

Embracing the "Ugly Beauty" of Our Dissonant Lives

By Kevin O’Connor

I don’t really identify as an artist. But I am a creative person, albeit a highly reluctant and shy one. I write, paint and plow my way furtively through musical expression. And I create two-wheeled contraptions that are better labeled as art than conveyance. It gives me joy to ride them and even more satisfaction to build them for friends and family.

As a public radio programmer and host, I have devoted my life to supporting the creative endeavors of other artists, mostly musicians. I consider my own talents highly subordinate to theirs and am grateful to be in their company. I suppose there is an art to presenting the art of others, though I don’t expect the MacArthur Foundation grants to be rolling in anytime soon.

But dissonance? Oh my! I can certainly speak to that. In jazz and improvisational music, dissonance is never shunned. In fact, the most revered jazz artists always embraced atonality and what Thelonious Monk described in a famous piece as “Ugly Beauty.”

From the time I could hear notes, I was drawn not to melody or catchy phrasing but to tones of a decidedly more jarring nature. This was a logical response to a noisy, chaotic and traumatic childhood, or so I theorized.

My earliest heroes were people like John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Albert Ayler, and Charlie Parker. Less astonishingly, these and many other geniuses paid dearly for their visitations with addiction, mental illness, or both.

It’s pretty etched in jazz mythology that everybody took heroin so they could play like Charlie Parker. A more apt exploration might be to imagine what he would have sounded like without the junk. He’d have been faster, for sure, which really boggles the mind.

It is these dangerous myths, my connection to art and artists, and my own desire to be well that drew me to the Dissonance community. I had heard about the nonprofit from a colleague and attended its Unhappy Holidays event last year in Minneapolis. The idea of creating safe spaces where creative people with (or without) mental health and addictive issues can share a bit of solidarity and comfort resonated with me instantly.

Freely sharing support—however that manifests itself—among artists who identify as depressed, anxious and/or chemically dependent is nothing short of inspirational.  Dissonance is at once focused and inclusive. And, frankly, it serves such a clear need that it’s surprising such communities are so rare.

As for me, I certainly was experiencing dissonance years ago.

Some kids fantasize about being rock or movie stars, practicing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush microphone and broom guitar. Well, at age 10, I was practicing what I anticipated to be my first remarks at an AA meeting. Out loud. Tears and dramatic inflection were well rehearsed by the time I was 12. I wish I were joking, but that’s how hard-wired we were in my family toward a sort of soused pre-destiny. I confess to a slight saturation of after-school specials as well. Who knew Mary from “Little House” could play drunk so well? Or was that Laura?

All too often, it is the creative person who runs toward the fire. For many of us, that impulse is always there, despite varied – and often damaging – results. Finding a balance between following the risky calls to the fire and seeking safety and serenity is a goal I have not yet fully achieved, and precisely why I’m grateful for a community like Dissonance.

Kevin O’Connor is the music director and afternoon host at KBEM-FM, the overnight host at Classical Minnesota Public Radio, and a person in long-term recovery.

Editor’s Note: You are invited to the Warming House, an alcohol-free listening room in South Minneapolis, for a Happy Hour on Thursday, Oct. 26, at 5pm. It’s a chance to learn about the mission and programming of Dissonance, the network of resources and how to get involved, from events to blogs like this one to board service. There will be refreshments, light snacks and music from Theyself. It’s an open invitation to come, connect and unwind a bit.

Let Go Out Loud

By Jennifer Gilhoi

When I discovered Dissonance, it definitely struck a chord with me.

Ever since my sponsor -- a sort of mentor for staying sober -- moved to Miami, I’ve been in a “recovery meeting” funk. Some days, I’m totally OK with the idea of scaling back my weekly attendance at Twelve Step meetings, which I’ve kept up consistently for the past two years. Other days, I beat myself up for having little desire to go.

Then, along came Dissonance, which offers additional options for supportive fellowship, with an outreach component that I’ve been envisioning must exist somewhere in some shape or form.

That’s why I was so intrigued when I came across a Facebook post about a St. Patrick’s Day Happy Hour hosted by Dissonance. Meet up at one of my favorite coffee shops at 4 pm on a Friday? Count me in! This little gathering -- an informal and conversational meeting in a public location -- served as my first intro to Dissonance. No agenda. Just a group of people connecting with one another about struggle, wellness and life. And enjoying it.

I then discovered that Dissonance had held a public event last December with musicians, storytellers, food, and wide-ranging conversations about recovery and mental health. And that an upcoming event -- also open to the public -- promised music and yoga. Again, count me in!

I became enamored with the concept behind this group. I get the rigor of Twelve Step programs and their tradition of anonymity. Indeed, Twelve Step meetings have been critical to my recovery. At the same time, I’ve been wondering about other forms of growth-oriented support. I’ve also been wondering about the powerful role that people in long-term recovery can have in shattering the stigma of addiction simply by letting their recovery status be known. More and more, I see how stepping out of church basements to embrace a more integrated presence and acceptance in society sends a clear invitation to others that it’s OK to seek help sooner than later.

If I’ve learned anything in my 20 years of active addiction and nearly three years of continuous sobriety, it’s that ego and confidence can be a double-edged sword. My confidence can serve me well. But for two decades, my ego also kept me from setting foot inside a recovery meeting room. And while I avoided what I knew to be true -- that I had a drinking problem -- the people around me also turned away from the obvious.

Meanwhile, during those same 20 years, I never met a single person in recovery who noticed my behavior and reached out. Nor did I know a person living happily in recovery who might have attracted me to the path. Or, did I? Did they exist? They were mythical in my mind.

Of course, it turns out I did know people living well in recovery. I just didn’t know that I did, thanks to the culture of secrecy that surrounds addiction and its solutions.

Could being more open in recovery -- and less anonymous -- help smash some of the stigma attached to addiction? Could it subtly but effectively invite others to find help sooner? Could we actually meet publicly in normal social settings? Could we hold conversations that let us experience vulnerability with both others in recovery and “normies” … at the same time?

For some of us, experiencing Dissonance-styled fellowship in normal social environments strikes a helpful balance between Twelve Step support group settings and the typical "bar-concert-restaurant" scenes that, without the added context of recovery, can be uncomfortable and unhealthy. The idea of acclimating back into society -- maintaining the priority of protecting my recovery while at the same time re-integrating humor, fun, activity and celebratory shared interests (like music concerts) into my life -- appeals to me. I also like the idea of finding my own recovery crowd. Though we share a common condition, we are anything but a monolithic bunch, which should come as no surprise given there are more than 20 million people in recovery in the United States alone.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating against Twelve Step recovery or any other path. To me, it’s not an “either/or” proposition, but rather a “both/and” idea. I believe that the more I can do to lead a healthy, fulfilling life, the safer my recovery will be.

I appreciate what a daily gift recovery is and how tenuous it can be, especially at first. In fact, when I initially got sober, my confidence soared so high, I ended up drinking again. And I didn’t understand. I was doing so well on my path; why would I return to alcohol use? As it turns out, of course, that is the nature of addiction; my mind fought relentlessly for the belief that I could drink normally, even though that was clearly not the case. I also realize today that my recovery -- ostensibly, my life -- was missing something. I had cut out friends and social engagements in fierce protection of sobriety, or so I thought. The truth is that I avoided typical social settings because I no longer felt comfortable in them -- a reality my ego could hardly stand. I longed to just be normal. Comfortable again. Confident. Or at least secure. Twelve Step meetings were helping in important ways but I was separating myself from other important aspects of life that I thought I had to give up.

Dissonance -- and the idea of finding recovery fellows and allies who share my interests and passions -- is opening my eyes to broader possibilities. I love that a Calgary bar recently hosted an alcohol-free bash and that others are paving the way, like the Sober Bars brand in Pennsylvania and HazelFest right here in Minnesota. Can we do more of this? I think yes!

I spent the first year of recovery pouring out my soul in safe, supportive, anonymous rooms where others generously shared, through their own experience, “promises” of what recovery could bring. My second year, I began to see the world with fresh eyes, my perceptions expanding in the beauty that practicing gratefulness daily reveals. Now, in my third year, even more is unfolding. For example, I can see that the fourth step in my recovery program, which involved conversations and making amends to others in my most immediate circle, was actually the first step in bringing my condition out of the shadows.

Since then, I’ve slowly continued the transition toward a more unfettered openness -- the kind I see embraced by Dissonance. The kind that calls out to my own longing for a well-balanced life and allows me to fully explore my passions. The kind that may one day call out to others who come after me. I’m not doing any trailblazing just yet, but am on the cusp of restlessness and happy to discover there’s more to be explored in recovery. I knew there was. After all, part of this is outlined in the Twelve Steps themselves, which encourage us, not to passively hold onto recovery, but to actively be a role model for others. Sponsorship, service work, advocacy and activism -- as far as I’m concerned, just different ways to express our voice in recovery.

Some may choose a different path entirely, and that’s OK. But for those of us who are ready and inclined to do so, let’s share more openly about both struggle and wellbeing. I’m ready if you are. Let’s recover out loud. Let’s publicly model what the promise of recovery looks like for us. It’s time to let go of shame, fear and secrecy. In the name of social progress, let’s let go together.

Jennifer Gilhoi is a marketing, social media and events consultant, avid yogi and the co-founder of the wellness community Empowering All.

Not Today

By Katy Vernon

Editor’s Note: This is the second dispatch from Katy during her 2017 tour of the United Kingdom. This one is from Brighton, England, where, in addition to performing, she was busy writing songs like Look to the Sea. Make sure to also read her first post - The H.A.LT. Tour.

BRIGHTON, ENGLAND -- I'm now two weeks into my seven-week UK tour. It's my first time traveling back to play music in the country where I was born and raised, the first time I have toured alone anywhere, and perhaps most importantly, my first extended time alone, period.

I am also undertaking all of this excitement, anxiety and adventure without the crutch of alcohol.

Almost a year ago, I sat and listened to a woman discuss how she took a business trip to France. She was alone in a hotel room thousands of miles away from her family. Wine was served with every meal, and there was a fully stocked mini bar in her room. She didn't drink. She was proud of herself, and as I watched others congratulate her on her recovery, I couldn't imagine “that” ever being me.

Of course, at the time, I didn't fully believe I had an addiction. But—in what should have been a sign—I also couldn't imagine having the freedom to drink without witnesses or judgment, and not doing it.

Here I am, though. Two weeks into a tour of Great Britain, where there are pubs on every corner and it’s legal to drink on the streets, and where single-serve wine is sold in convenience stores. Every day I walk by literally dozens of places where I could sit and have one quiet, secret glass.

Not today.

I am keeping promises to myself on this trip – promises that have come to mean a lot to me.

I used to feel naked out in public, meeting new people. Only alcohol put me at ease. But I’m finding a more natural ease now. Every time I walk into a new venue, I have the choice to either take someone up on the offer of a drink or to introduce “sober me.” As soon as I let the words “I don't drink” come out of my mouth, I feel like I am holding myself accountable. Promise kept. I also feel thankful for how understanding people always seem to be. And how much easier it is to be me, when that’s all I have to be.

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but instead of feeling left out at these venues and on this tour, I feel much more fully engaged than ever. I pay more attention than I ever used to. I soak in so much more.

It’s been 20 years since I lived in the UK. And, back then, I never traveled much. So, it has been mildly terrifying to navigate my way around. But all of the steps I have taken this past year have strangely prepared me for it. I have learned how to be more open to life. I have grown more comfortable with planning what I can and accepting whatever outcomes result. With train tickets to book, and shows to play, I can't completely live in the moment. But during my “in between” times, I can comfortably wander the streets, sit and write, and take time to watch people and listen. All by myself.

It's a luxury that I know I might not have again. While I’m able to cover expenses with shows—and could make another tour work in that way—I doubt I’ll ever have this amount of time again to travel. My family in Minnesota has been amazingly understanding and generous, and in fact encouraged me to take the opportunity to do this tour in the first place. Perhaps they knew I was ready. Or what I needed. Either way, I am grateful.

Instead of being lonely, I am learning how to be alone.

Katy Vernon is a Minneapolis/St. Paul-based singer-songwriter. She grew up in London, England, and has been writing and singing as long as she can remember.

The Best Gifts Can't Be Wrapped

By Joe Nistler

The “Unhappy Holidays” event presented by Dissonance brought to light some great perspectives on navigating the holiday season when you suffer from addiction, mental illness or—if you’re like me—both. For most people, holidays mean reuniting with family. And for many, that means diving into an unhealthy atmosphere that we do our best to avoid throughout the year. But the panel got me thinking that the holidays don’t have to be unhappy. I can find plenty of things in the past year for which to be grateful—things that will get me through the season unscathed, even when circumstances conspire against me.

This holiday season has been humbling, to say the least. For all intents and purposes, I got laid off from my full-time job yesterday. They call it a "two-week unpaid vacation," so technically I’m still employed, but I’m pretty certain that I won’t be called to go back—no one will, the company’s done. I loved my job to the point that it often felt too good to be true. Now the cynic in me is laughing, saying, “See? I told you it wouldn’t last.” The funny thing is, despite being thrust into easily the most unstable financial situation since I’ve been sober, with more unknowns than I ever hoped to encounter at once, I can’t help but feel grateful—even happy—for the spiritual wealth I’ve come to grow in my recovery, and the friends and family that helped me along the way.

I’m fortunate enough to have a family that is starting to understand my substance use disorder and my recovery and support me in it. I was looking forward to buying gifts for the people I care about, to show them how much I care. It would have been the first time in years I would have been able to wrap presents, and now that option is gone. But I don’t feel the shame or disappointment in myself that I thought I would, because in the past year I’ve stumbled upon something much more valuable than the things we put under the tree.

This day last year, December 16th, was the last time I picked up drugs, and in two days it will be the anniversary of the last time I put them down. Last Christmas was the first in this new era of recovery for me, but it didn't feel all that different from the other unhealthy ones in my past.

This year is different. I can feel satisfied with my accomplishments and stand tall on them, rather than using them like a smokescreen to distract from the underlying addiction. I have seen the people around me grow and learn along this journey, too—I don't feel envious of them anymore. I can share honest moments with the ones I care about without crawling through the foggy haze of addiction. I welcome the unknowns and see them as opportunities, rather than devastating setbacks.

I still worry about what will come next, and how to find the right way—the worrying is a part of a clinical disorder with which I'll always have to live. But this holiday season, most importantly, is the one-year anniversary of the day I decided that everything would be all right. It was more powerful than a realization, it was truly a decision to start doing right, with the understanding that somewhere, some cosmic force would recognize that decision and allow me to persevere through the hardships. If I can remain genuine in my humility, gratitude and servitude to my community and higher power, I strongly feel that things will work out how they're meant to.

Call it faith, call it "turning my will over to a higher power as (I) understood him," call it a spiritual awakening—the only thing I realized last December was that things were never going to improve in the long run if I kept acting on the same impulses and trying to cheat the system for instant gratification. Looking back, my decision touches on several of the Twelve Step principles that have proven such an effective solution for me—turning over my will, addressing character defects, taking personal inventory and practicing the principles in all my affairs. But it’s hard to nail down just which step led to that moment. How do I really explain the instant I decided to change my life? How much of a role did I, myself, even play in that?

I'm certain of one thing—without loving people and opening up to some positive forces in my life, I would not have come to the same conclusion. I would not have recognized the blessings around me and the journey that lay ahead, and I would not be able to look around today and recognize the same loving joy around me amplified by my spiritual presence.

Life is stressful right now. There are a lot of unknowns, and I’m waiting to see what comes next. I always thought having to file for unemployment the week before Christmas Eve was a Dickensian cliché that couldn’t happen in real life, yet here I sit. Before, these circumstances might have broken me, but not anymore. The only antagonists in this story, though, are my addiction, my mental illness, and that one drink or hit that could return me to despair. I hear it calling to me from time to time when I’m most vulnerable, but thankfully I haven’t had to feed it for a full year now.

So maybe I can't fulfill that ego-driven homecoming fantasy of showing up at my parents’ door with presents under each arm. But at least that’s the only thing this holiday has in common with those in the past. I don’t think that’s the point of the holidays, anyway, nor is it the point of recovery. The desire to give “things” to my loved ones wasn’t entirely altruistic to begin with. Instead, I see that the best gifts can't be wrapped. They are the ones that keep on giving, for as long as I work at them. They are the ones reassuring me that when one door closes, another one opens. And until I find the next door, I have a lot to celebrate this year.

Joe Nistler is a Twin Cities-based writer for recovery-focused magazines across the country. He also covers local music and culture for 608 Magazine in Madison, WI, and is a graduate of the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Path to Wellness is Not Always Straight

By Joe Nistler

It was the summer after my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—a year of small successes and setbacks, ongoing struggles with anxiety and depression, and a budding addiction that I wouldn’t admit, much less address, for another two years.

Substance use hadn’t consumed my life yet, but things were moving in that direction. I was able to hide outward signs of addiction behind academic success and the norms of a campus culture that thrived on alcohol. My GPA said “functioning student;” the bottles and cans that filled my trash screamed “alcoholic.” But I didn’t look much worse than the crowd I ran with.

The goals I remember revolved around my drinking—like telling myself I’d only get drunk on Friday and Saturday during finals week, rather than Wednesday through Sunday. Keep in mind that getting drunk, for me, was equivalent to blacking out. Drinking, on the other hand, was a casual, near-daily exercise in self-medication—one that I practiced while studying, between classes and before going out to parties to get drunk(er).

It was the only way I knew to get by. For as long as I can remember, I felt like something was missing in me—some secret to life that it seemed other people understood but I couldn’t comprehend. Drugs and alcohol brought on the illusion of understanding, so I used them to cope with emptiness and connect with people. I used them to hide from myself and as a cure for boredom.

As the school year wrapped and I returned to my parents’ home in Minnesota for the summer, I didn’t have the same access to alcohol and drugs that I had at school. Suddenly I came face to face with myself and a sense of isolated despair, fueled by intrusive thoughts of shame, self-loathing and emptiness. There had to be a better way of living, and a psychology course the previous semester turned me onto the idea of therapy as a tool. So, I made an appointment.

After a couple of introductory sessions, my therapist recommended that I try an antidepressant and abstain from mood-altering chemicals. I didn’t like the last part, but I agreed to it without intending to actually follow through. Most importantly, he started leading me in guided mindfulness meditation and breathing exercises.

Mindfulness meditation helped me from the first time I practiced it. In the therapist’s office, I felt relaxed, and the physical tension in my stomach was less constricting. My thoughts weren’t racing quite so fast anymore. After a couple weeks of mixed effort and equally mixed results, I began to follow his recommendation of listening to a 20-minute recording daily—twice a day, actually. And I started noticing changes in my daily behaviors.

The constant, agonizing feeling that I should be doing something, or that I was missing out on something, or that there was some “right” answer to every situation that escaped me, began to dissipate. I started feeling okay with myself in the moment. In social situations, I still felt awkward at times, but it didn’t get to me as much. I didn’t dwell on the negatives or beat myself up for days on end, which freed up time to create more positive experiences. I let myself move forward.

Finally, I felt like I had some semblance of control over my emotions. I kept up with my daily medication and meditation, as well as weekly therapy sessions. The feeling of freedom drove me to incorporate other improvements in my life, like eating healthier, exercising more and getting more involved in the things I enjoyed. My self-esteem was improving, so I was able to make plans with friends without assuming that I’d be bothering them or interrupting something. And perhaps most perplexingly, as a side effect of my newfound wellness, I stopped craving drugs and alcohol.

My thoughts no longer revolved around getting intoxicated to enjoy life (or escape it). Instead I enjoyed life for what it was. I never intended to get sober that time, and I still drank and got high at the occasional gathering, but using was no longer my main priority, and such occasions were infrequent by any standard.

After a great summer, I returned to Madison and, unfortunately, dove right back into the party scene. Still, with my meditation practice intact, I felt different than before. I was able to socialize—was somewhat outgoing, excited about life and less afraid to take chances. I started pursuing the things I enjoyed for the fun of it, without fear of failure. I started covering the arts and music scene for a campus newspaper. I made plans to travel and study abroad (and followed through with them). I chose a major: journalism (and a second major: Italian). I made new friends and had some great times, but I also became familiar with the local detox facilities.

Without recognizing my need for sobriety, eventually the partying caught up with me. The mental hygiene regimen had allowed me to maintain using for a while without any serious consequences. But then I turned to harder drugs—prescription drugs, and later heroin and methamphetamine—that were great shortcuts for school, work, relaxing and socializing. Those drugs eventually replaced meditation as my primary tool for living, and I neglected my mental health entirely. The descent was slow, and the pit was deep.

I constantly looked back longingly at that summer of ‘09 when things felt right, but completely failed to recognize the role that sobriety had played in my happiness.

You see, I made a mess of my life when I was on drugs, and for a while, I thought they were the problem. But in the bigger picture, they were a solution—a fast-acting, unsustainable answer to the deeper issues I needed to face within myself. They were the easiest way to ignore the severe anxiety and depression I had experienced for most of my life.

It never dawned on me until recently, but back in 2009, I had my first experience with a form of recovery—before my first treatment and conscious attempt at sobriety in 2012, and long before my most recent in October of 2015. Today, I base my recovery in large part on the mental wellness principles I learned and implemented during that first summer.

I meditate daily, attend at least one Twelve Step meditation meeting each week, and keep in close contact with my sober support network. I still see a therapist, take my medication as prescribed and try to live healthy. Mental wellness, Twelve Step principles, and a sober community are the foundations of my recovery. From there, everything else has kind of fallen into place. I have an appreciation for art, music and creativity that is stronger than ever, and I have a gig that lets me write full time—that, in itself, was a lifelong dream. I’m able to connect with people in my life—to provide help, and ask for it when I need it.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that recovery is complicated—especially from co-occurring mental illness and substance use. It takes a lot of moving parts falling into place just right. Sometimes those parts show up out of order and provide a glimpse of recovery before we’re ready to put it all together. But with each supposed failure comes a lesson, and with each lesson comes wisdom to connect the next piece of the puzzle, whenever it presents itself.

I was lucky to have a good relationship with my first therapist, and to respond to the first antidepressant I tried. I was lucky to learn about meditation early on, which made it easier to return to later. I was lucky to get into treatment one last time, and desperate enough to listen.

I’m a year into my recovery, and for the first time since 2009, life feels pretty good. I’m still learning and living one day at a time, and grateful for the lessons that come every day.

Joe Nistler is a Twin Cities-based writer for recovery-focused magazines across the country. He also covers local music and culture for 608 Magazine in Madison, WI, and is a graduate of the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

How It Doesn't Work

By Phil Circle                                

It’s a famous story in the lexicon of Phil.

Here's the setup:
It had become well known to my fans that I enjoyed it when they’d bring shots to the stage and place them at my feet. I’d grab them and knock ‘em back while playing guitar one-handed, or, in another display of mock showmanship, pretend I wasn’t watching while bandmates snatched them up. It was a (deadly) bonding experience with my audience. This night was no different.

Here's the pitch:
I’m on stage at Chicago’s Double Door on a Saturday night before a standing-room-only crowd. I look down. There are seven shots of tequila. I shrug my shoulders and reach for one. Then another. People cheer. And the next. They egg me on. Soon, all of the shots have made their way into my addicted body, and I think I’m feeling the warm fuzzies.

And the swing:
The emcee grabs the microphone and gives a brief and flattering rundown of who I am, concluding with, “Ladies and gentleman, Phil Circle!” As the applause ensues, I strut to the mic and let go in grandiose fashion: “Go f*#k yourself! A one, two, three … .” And the band and I kick into our set.

A strike or a hit?
This wasn’t the worst of it. Neither was my 10-minute version of a song that usually goes six. Or my raunchy comments during the show. Or the fact that my drummer quit after the show. The worst part of this evening was the response I received. People loved it. They wanted to see me abuse myself and share my pain with them. They wanted the spectacle.

When I left the stage, I was patted on the back and “treated” to more free drinks. The other bands on the bill all complimented my show. The manager of one of the bands asked me why such a professional group as mine was even sharing a stage with the other bands. I was encouraged to act this way! I was given a free pass to be an ass! I was told in no uncertain terms (that is, I heard it this way) that it’s perfectly fine if I rage in my alcoholism and let it affect my gift … the music. And from that show forward, I used that evening as an example of how great I was. How sick is that? Loaded question.

When I look back at my 30 years of playing music, I see a trend. Every time I got a pat on my back, it went to my head. I guess there’s an “activate ego” button on my upper vertebrae. Once it went to my head, I felt as if I didn’t need to give as much or work as hard. Oh, but I could still drink as hard. When that led to fewer gigs and smaller crowds, I blamed the music business and the public’s poor ear for talent. When this led to resentments, I drank even more. All of this would restart several times until the pats on the back became fewer and turned into skewed glances of concern or scrunched-up wincing faces.

It wasn’t the pancreatitis with its excruciating pain and puking blood that eventually made me quit drinking. It wasn’t the liver disease. It wasn’t the loss of my livelihood. It wasn’t the many ways I was wasting away physically or the potential loss of my best friend, my wife. It wasn’t that my spirit had been squashed and replaced with a debilitating painful despair. The final straw was the difficult realization and admission that I no longer had my art. The thing I loved most in the world, the means by which I shared my genuine love for people, the gift the universe gave me -- it was gone.      

When I went to treatment, the first thing my very insightful substance use counselor did was connect me with a spiritual counselor, who also was a guitarist, to discuss grieving. What was I grieving, I asked. The loss of your music, he answered. Soon, my treatment plan included an assignment that scared the crap out of me. I was to play a set of music -- just me, my voice and my guitar -- for the 25 guys in my unit. Sober. No meds. I had only coffee and Skittles® to get me by, and the loving encouragement of a bunch of guys who were strangers to me a couple of weeks prior. It was the first of several performances to my fellows in the treatment center, and slowly, my music came back.   

When I returned home, I was asked to play an opening solo set for a woman whose band I had blacked out in front of at my last show, just before leaving for the sober woods up north. She introduced me by telling the story of my previous show, dirt and all. She ended by saying that now she sees a different man. Instead of a cocky strutting rooster, she sees a humble and loving man who just wants to share his gift of music.

“Shit,” I thought, “that’s all I ever wanted to do.”           

Afterward, she posted online that I “absolutely kicked ass.” I got teary and felt a strangely different reaction. I wanted to work hard to keep giving something, not taking. I knew this was going to require a lot of hard work, both physically and spiritually.

Today, I keep busy in Buddhism. I keep busy with my guitar and voice. I keep writing. I’m thrilled if three people enjoy something I share. Suddenly, I remember why I started doing this. I love to give. I don’t really care for the so-called rock star image. I don’t want it. I never did. I was immersed in the throes of a disease that pushed for any excuse to stay alive, even at the expense of my life.

And a funny thing has happened at shows. No one asks me if I want a drink. They just tell me how glad they are I quit. And that button on my back when you pat it? It’s turned into an “activate gratitude” button.

Phil Circle has been a working singer, songwriter and guitarist based in Chicago for 30 years. When he’s not writing, recording or performing music, he writes for local music publications and works on the 2nd edition of his book, “The Outback Musicians’ Survival Guide,” a whimsical and informative look at the frontline musician that will include a new chapter, “And Then He Got Sober.” Phil also teaches guitar and voice privately, offering one new piece of advice for aspiring young adult musicians: “The fact that the sex, drugs and booze are typically free is proof they’re potentially bad for you. So, focus on your music.”