Click Image Above to Hear the Writers for Recovery/Vermont Public Podcast Featuring Mark LeGrand

It is with great sadness that Bess and I learned of the passing of incredible human, stalwart recovery advocate, and Vermont music legend Mark LeGrand.

Mark’s impact on country music in Vermont was unparalleled. From his teen years onward, he played and sang in numerous bands and produced critically-lauded albums of his own work. He learned his craft from listening to his musical heroes, from Willie and Waylon to Billy Joe Shaver, Rodney Crowell, Townes VanZandt and others who set the highest of bars for songcraft. Mark’s own songs told stories of struggle, of love, of hope. They lived up to the standards of Mark’s idols, and he delivered them with total humility, which was one of his trademarks.

In recent years, Mark, his wife Sarah Munro, and some of the best players in Central Vermont had been a regular fixture in the little club at the corner of Montpelier’s Elm and Langdon Streets. The name of the place changed, but Mark was always there, with a cool-as-ever cowboy lid and a voice that filled the room with warmth and emotion. I was lucky enough to be there for many of those nights, and I count them as some of the most enjoyable times I have ever spent. Mark sang ‘em all, often in gorgeous duets with Sarah, from his original tunes like Don’t Trouble Trouble and  Shipwrecked Love, to rock-solid covers, of which “Rainy Night in Georgia” was my personal favorite.

Less generally known but perhaps even more impactful was Mark’s work in the recovery community. Mark deeply understood addiction and recovery from personal experience, and he generously gave to uncountable people in need of support. He was always there, with an open ear. He never judged, and when he spoke to you with that unshakeable faith and deep, resonant baritone, you knew that someone real was on your side. At this very moment, there are thousands of people in Vermont whose lives are better for Mark’s work and his impact on themselves, their friends, and their families. I am one of those impacted. When I reached out to Mark years ago, I was beaten down and desperate, and without his love and wisdom, I don’t know where I would be today.

Mark never stopped giving to recovery. When Bess and I asked him to perform at our Writers for Recovery book publishing events, he jumped on board, and brought the real life of addiction onto the stage through his songs. And he was featured in the Writers for Recovery/VPR podcast My Heart Still Beats, where he generously shared his story with people across Vermont and around the world.

Several days before he died, Mark posted a Facebook message:

 “Love each other, tell each other you love them often and harbor no resentments. Forgive everyone and everything. Live each day and never give in to fear. I love each and every one of you. Peace on earth will come someday.”

 Mark was generous to the end, and he will be missed. All of us at WFR send our condolences to Sarah, and to the rest of Mark’s family and friends.

i came here to feel safe -

to write -

to feel alive –

to laugh – to smile –

and to cry if need be

i came here for me -

to fill my cup

to pour into other cups

to be a link in the chain

a connection between dots

i came here

because i’m supposed to -

because this is where life

has led me to be

i came here

because the world

is frosty – cold - and unforgiving

so i came here

for a cup of hot coffee

to feel warmth - to feel energized – to feel alive –

and to be –

where i belong

Click image to read article in Seven Days

Vermont’s coolest weekly paper did a feature story on our Writers for Flood Recovery workshops! You can read all about it here or by clicking the image above. Thanks to Suzanne Podhaizer and everyone at Seven Days for sharing our work!

I had more than one option. I could hide in my addiction or I could get help. Asking for help never came easy for me. But I leaned into recovery and slowly discovered that surrendering to not knowing how to live without drugs and alcohol was the easier softer way. Asking others how they did it gave me strength. It was the path of least resistance. It allowed me to embrace my humanity. It allowed me to drop the facade of perfectionism.

It’s still hard for me to ask for help sometimes, but when I’m able to reflect on my early days in recovery, I’m reminded that asking for help gave me my life back. Sometimes, like tonight, I ask my partner to help talk me off the ledge. We talk, and I feel peace. When I stuff the feelings, I feel rage.

The easier softer way is still asking for help. It no longer feels scary. It helps me when I help others. It must help others when I let them help me too.

What more do you want, Nellie. Today you heard yourself say,

“The world seems to need me now more than a single individual.”

Why are you so shy about the details of your childhood?

Do you remember Karen Carpenter’s epitaph, “Well at least I think you still can’t be too rich”

Have you eaten today?

Are the good old songs new now?

Where did I put my keys?

What am I going to do about the comedy invitation with earth people?

Is this a good idea?

If you have a perception of a person that is different than the one in front of you, why do you go to the memory, or the tape good or bad?

How much sleep have you had?

Will I make it to the bathroom or get sick in the classroom?

Does that person want me to text?

What’s the lesson in it?

Will that student think I am weird for writing a thank you note?

Isn’t it true that there is so much freedom in not having to take a drink?

Should I ask if Jackie’s going to the retreat that is happening on my former street?

What was the last name of my roommate Rachel?

Why do shih tzu paws smell like corn chips?

What are you going to do when you have every opportunity?

Do you think you can live long enough to repay the kindness that has been shown to you?

My aunt Lil kept on living 20 years beyond her terminal diagnosis with that one.

WFR Workshop leader Carol Adinolfi has put together an amazing collaboration among inmates at Vermont’s Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility, Writers for Recovery, and Threshold Collaborative. The result is Reclaiming Our Stories, an incredible Zoom reading of works from Marble Valley inmates read by three professional actors and other invited guests. And you can watch it all on Zoom! It’s funded in part by Vemont Humanities and Vermont Department of Corrections.

Here are the details. Please register and join us on Zoom!

RECLAIMING OUR STORIES:

An Online Reading of Writings from the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility

MONDAY, MARCH 31st - 7 PM ET

We hope you will join us for this unique presentation of writings by members of a Writers for Recovery Workshop at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility.

Their work will be read by three wonderful professional actors and other invited guests.

A COLLABORATION OF WRITERS FOR RECOVERY & THRESHOLD COLLABORATIVE

Funded in part by Vermont Humanities and Vermont Department of Corrections

Johny and Ben are ready to help! Stop by and say hi!!

If you’re looking for harm reduction services and support including syringe access, sharps disposal, Narcan, safer use supplies, drug testing, Xylazine wound care, and HIV+ case management, look no further than Vermont Cares. I stopped by their office in Barre on Wednesday to hang with Ben and Johny and learn more about their supportive, confidential services. When you need help, they’re ready — with a smile and without judgement.

The Barre office is located upstairs above the People’s Health and Wellness Clinic, 51 Church St. in Barre, VT. That’s right behind the big statue of the kneeling guy, so it’s easy to find! The office is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Call for hours: 802-528-1135. They also offer a free app, which you can download by scanning a QR code here..

VT Cares also offers services through a mobile unit, and at offices in Burlington, Rutland, and St. Johnsbury. For more info, visit the Vermont Cares website at VTcares.org.

I had to ask,

just like nuclei,

quarks, or things on the infinitesimally small plain of existence,

A question unobserved is both real and here, and not real and gone.

I feel that I may be cursed to live as Nimrod,

to speak, only to be understood by the one and only one who also speaks with identical observer affect,

my harp shaped bow pulls and strains until my arrow is leased upon my game,

strings and sinew push and pull in through atomic dark matter

the empty space inside all things to keep a cosmic balance,

the strong nuclear force, forced apart and separated

atoms pushing against each other, separated by electrons,

through photons we can see the wood for the trees,

watching it followed now by blood through the breeze.

dark matter fills all voids, the question of this dark matter kills all light,

I blink in and out of existence,

my malformed electra complex evolved through enmeshment to a bizarre reverse solipsism.

when your eyes close I disappear,

when I asked I knew it was a road best left untraveled,

but like a downward escalator it's hard to step off

once you've committed yourself to stepping your measured hundredweight and penny pounds

now on the d'escalator, deflated, I tend escalate and inflate to fight shadows, shoes and demons of the past

some questions are sometimes best left unanswered,

but there is a different kind of one at play here.

one that when uncovered will destroy all,

yet, it is this answer that must be spoken, for the destruction is nothing compared to armageddon,

we cannot exist in schrodinger's nothingness

pretending the vial won't break doesn't solve the radioactive pit and pendulum problem

mood managers can only hold back the levy as long as the levy doesn't have the weight of my world in it,

I bare a wildfire that will freeze the blood of all of those in its wake as i stray further from the one i always wanted to be,

the boy who picked up snails to put them safely on some leaves, late to school for befriending some swans.

the more pounds of flesh I lost the more the undeveloped inner childs rotting corpse is exposed, hanging from my gut like evisceration

the secrets held from transform me,

I,

no longer man but beast, lashing out at itself,

biting and scratching gnawing on his own limbs a rabid creature pulling at its own fur,

i had the worst life said my ex, it is the badge of shame and honor i wear pinned through my chest,

CPTSD plays pictures in mind, cycles the lies and memories around my brain

until I am only the result of trespass and trespassees,

safer for those who love him to do so from afar,

A left and lost boy

I don’t know quite how to explain it, but what got me started writing again was these Zoom groups, Writers for Recovery. I hadn’t been able to write for years, because I was so worried that my bipolar hypergraphia might rear its ugly head if I gave in and indulged myself with writing, the symptom where I can’t stop writing uncontrollably, even while driving in a car with my hardcover journal splayed open across the steering wheel, with me taking notes hurriedly as if my life most certainly depended on it, 25 miles to Lansing, 55 mph, Steer St, Clinton Street, Hunt’s Automotive 954-399-2424, man with red bowler hat holding a puppy, maybe a Cairn terrier, and on and on. I was afraid the writing would once again take me over, with me left subsumed under the ocean wash of frenetic activity gone mad. And I was afraid with my PTSD, what might happen -- with so many laid up traumas stashed underneath piles and piles of worn-out outgrown selves and personas, buried underground underneath where no one can see, not even me. But the writing is the mystery elixir which lures them back out, all those long ago stories and feelings wrapped around stories. Writers for Recovery gave me a way to tell my life in only 7 minutes, 7 minutes at a time -- just a hot air helium gasp escape, just letting out a tiny burble that expands into a mini-story, too hot to touch fresh out of the toaster but slowly cooling down as we listen to each other’s stories. Just enough to let some of the hot air steam escape but not long enough to bring on the annoying PTSD flashbacks I’d managed long ago to bury deep within myself. Writers for Recovery gave me a new outway to share the hurt of the past while becoming sane again.

Angala Devoid has been a long-time participant in WFR. I love her work and its powerful honesty. She recently sent me a big batch of work, which I’ll share across a few posts. Here is the first. Enjoy!

We Began Again

I was your dream come true but you became my after thought 
You fit in my life it felt so good at the time
Shifted through old memories that keep that closet door wide open
When I saw you in the grocery store I pretended I was blind 
You left me in the dark that was flipping rude
I used to dream we would get back together 
How could I let you do that to me?
I am not sorry for the way I let you talk to me boy am I grateful I accepted I deserve 
So much better
Eventually I grew to love me more than I loved you
It’s kind of the opposite don’t you think? The paintings in my life are so much different know from my past drawings 
I think about these things sometimes before I turn out the lights and finally begin my journey into a good nights sleep.

How Is It I Remembered this Road?

Everyone makes mistakes I thought I acted like a supergirl 
My heartbreak was one thing but my ego I wouldn’t let go 
Whatever devil was inside me I tried like hell not to let it take me over
I left quite an impression in an upside down mirror 
I swore to god I would always lie to be accepted 
I got my tarot cards read with a fake smile what are the odds this was never my time zone?
Why are you still looking at me?
Am I your inspiration?
It’s something I always fell for you always came off very well spoken
You put me in a meditation I tried not to fall for 
Just last week I didn’t have any doubts, I thought I would end this life alone 
What a surprise just to keep me bitching 
Jealous ?
What was I supposed to do? I ended up crying cause it was over
When a cardinal flies by I always find the questions I always wondered about
You guilt tripped me into looking up to you but little did you know I found god in a filled up room.


It Had Been Years Since I Had Seen the Photo

In the beginning I refused to see what I was losing
The years I put into my addictions keep me from seeing, feeling, touching something bigger than I 
If I could go back and erase all the nasty words I told myself on the daily I would hit reverse and yell hey girl what are you thinking?
Those bullies couldn’t see they were missing out on someone special because deep down it was easier to pick on someone stronger than it was to look at themselves in the mirror.
I realize today instead of believing all the rumors all I had to do was believe in myself but all I believed in were my addictions.
Today I tell myself when I open the front door is I am a winner
It had been years since I have seen the photos of those bullies in my mind.


What I Think Late at Night

Standing at the crossroads torn between two lives my grandmother used to tell me someday I needed to learn how to survive 
I had to crawl along the paths I went down lead me to where I thought I would never be
Why did I want to fit in? I knew deep down I didn’t need to be like the all the rest but that is where all my insecurities led my lonely emotions, In a crowded room I even felt alone.
I let my mind feed me lies while my ego stood by i held so tight to my past memories that keep me from moving forward i always waited for a sign.
I took my first drink snorted my first pill swearing to Jesus Christ 
They said if I picked up the first one I might get hooked that took me years to believe they were right
Looking back now and thinking about my grandmother in heaven I hope she is up there smiling with pride knowing I surrender everyday to survive.

All photos copyright Terry J. Allen. 

We had a great time on Saturday, October 19th, celebrating Writers for Recovery’s 10th anniversary in style! We broke out copies of our new book, One Imagined Word at a Time, Volume 6. (You can order it here.) We enjoyed fantastic readings by WFR participants and Vermont Poet Laureate Bianca Stone. Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and Alan Cormier, Chief of Operations from the Vermont Department of Corrections, stopped by to share their support. The Bent Nails House Band supplied a serious groove. And as promised, there was cake. Yes, cake! So many WFR participants old and new came to the bash, and it was so great to see all of you

A $10,000 Anonymous Donation!

Just hours before the bash kicked off, we received a $10,000 anonymous donation. Wow. Just wow. We are gonna make the most of that amazing generosity with amazing programming in 2025.

Special thanks to photographer Terry Allen for shooting and sharing the photos you see here. Completely out of the blue, she contacted us to volunteer her services to help us share our anniversary with the world.

I was off balance. Too much work with no play. Too much wake with no sleep. Too much drugs with no high. Self care? What self? I don’t know him. Sometimes I see an image that looks like him, fractured on shards of glass when the light hits it at certain angles. But I can’t care for him. I don’t know what he needs. I don’t know what he likes. I don’t know what makes him feel happy, or safe, or sane. I don’t even know how to ensure his survival. Also… I don’t have the time for care. Or the energy. Or any sense of connection or valuation of this person, this stranger. I’m usually pretty empathetic, but I’ve heard too much. I said I don’t know him, but that’s not true. It’d be more accurate to say I know him too well but can’t recognize what he's become. I know all the worst things he’s ever done. Hell, I know the worst things he’s ever thought. That makes it hard. You think it’d be so easy to forgive and forget if you could read people’s minds? No wonder I spent so long trying to use chemical abrasion to erase the contents of my own.

Vermont Public is Sponsoring Our Tenth Anniversary Party!

TEN YEARS!! As anyone who knows recovery understands, that’s a long time. And like many people who make the leap to recovery, we started our journey dreaming of an idea and wondering if it would ever work. It did, and we're holding a big 'ol party to celebrate all we've accomplished! We'll have readings by WFR writers and Vermont Poet Laureate Bianca Stone, copies of our brand new book One Imagined Word at a Time, Volume 6, and live music by the amazing Bent Nails House Band! 

Thanks to Vermont Public for Sponsoring!

PLEASE JOIN US
October 19, 7 PM
Old Labor Hall
46 Granite St. 
Barre, VT 05641
 
We've met so many amazing people during our last ten years in the recovery community. Please come out to hear new work, talk about old times, meet the new members of the WFR team, and send some good vibes for our next 10 years. Bring your friends! Bring your family! Bring everybody!

See you there!

Bess and Gary

What I imagined when I heard Gov. Peter Shumlin devote his entire State of the Union speech to the opioid epidemic one decade ago was change. Change in the way we see and treat addiction. Unfortunately, this little state that likes to believe it leads the way in making change is woefully far behind when it comes to treating addiction. I’m appalled to hear our Health Commissioner Peter Levine say “This may not be the best strategy for Vermont in terms of getting the best bang for the buck” when discussing overdose prevention centers. I’m appalled that he is unaware of the evidence based research that shows not only do these overdose prevention centers help addicts, but the ripple effect reduces crime associated with chasing sick people. I’m appalled that our state seems intent on continuing a war on drugs that can not be won. We need our leaders to be educated. Johann Hari’s brilliant Chasing the Scream - The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs needs to be read and digested by every one of our leaders. Perhaps if our Governor had a personal experience with drug addiction, it would help open his mind.

Wow Left

Behind gee

So many thoughts

Sometimes it takes the

Wind out of my sails

What I been

What I could be

   Sometimes then I

Come to a time I

Left my self

What I left

Is my family

When I was out

There, I felt a need

I could not get

Behind is the

Wind that took

What I felt

I wondered that I

might have prespoke the

Feelings of the heart that

could result in a bit of confusion

The thing is stay unfocused

pray often

Beam whatever

Seize the darknesss

Sieve a rainbow

Garner the prize

To hold it

But for a

Love long

forgotten

From Ashes

In shadows deep, where demons roam,
I faced them down, but not alone.
With sword in hand and heart held tight,
I fought the darkness through the night.

Their whispers cold, their laughter cruel,
I struggled hard, a weary duel.
But strength waned thin, resolve grew weak,
As their grip tightened, dark and bleak.

With every strike, they fed on fear,
Their presence looming ever near.
Though I fought on with all my might,
The demons triumphed in the fight.

Their claws tore through my shattered soul,
As darkness claimed its final toll.
In silence now, I lay defeated,
By demons' hands, my fate completed.

Yet still a flicker, small but bright,
A spark of hope amidst the night.
For though the demons claimed their prize,
In ashes, new beginnings rise.

Sacred

In shadows cast by silent stares,
She weaves her tale of strength and cares.
Through trials vast and burdens deep,
Her spirit rises, never to sleep.

IIn worlds where whispers echo loud,
She finds her voice, unbowed, unbowed.
Through histories of pain and grace,
She claims her space, her sacred place.

With every step, a dance of pride,
Her beauty blooms, no need to hide.
In every heartache, she finds a song,
Her resilience fierce, forever strong.

Though scars may mark her journey's trace,
Her spirit soars with boundless grace.
For she's a beacon in the night,
A testament to love's pure light.

 
What Am I

In the mirror, I see a foe,
A self I've come to loathe and know.
With every glance, the hate does grow,
A shadowed weight, a relentless woe.

Each flaw a dagger, piercing deep,
A silent scream, a soul to keep.
In whispered doubts, my thoughts do seep,
A ceaseless cycle, no rest, no sleep.

But in this darkness, a glimmer gleams,
A fragile hope within the seams.
For love can bloom from shattered dreams,
And self-compassion's gentle beams.

Embrace the scars, the flaws, the pain,
For they're the threads that make you sane.
In forgiveness lies the sweet refrain,
Of finding peace amidst the rain.

So let the hate dissolve like mist,
And in its place, let kindness persist.
For in self-love, you will exist,
A masterpiece, beautifully kissed.

This story- this life of mine
So many roads, so little time

Always in a hurry
All over the place
In a world SO big
full of no grace

Shadows on the wall
And underneath it all
The doubt and fear
Living another year

With no way out
And no way in
And so, it had to begin

The healing, self love 
And prayers from above

It took me a while - to figure it out
Living this life of no doubt 

Every day met for it to be the BEST I can make it.
Clean and serene, ODAAT- I'll take it ❣️

Prevention and Recovery Poetry Jam! Coming to St. J. this Friday!! Cosponsored by Writers for Recovery. Thanks to WFR Workshop leader Gavin Wynkoop-Fischer for helping to make this happen!

What was I expecting?  It is like exceeding your expectations when you have none?  I used to wait tables in a place where they’d make you pass out comment cards.  Each one would be worth like 10 cents.  This would translate into the company’s own dollar buck system where you could get food or swag.  Exceeding expectations is like that.  Like when you have to pass out a comment card as way of spending dollar buck bonuses at a place where you are waiting tables.  Almost a total pointless loop.   And they will raise your salary 25 cents in the next two years if you get dozens of comment cards that say, “exceeds expectations.”  

Or you have to rate your professor, or even worse,  be rated as a teacher by 14 year-olds who want to tell you about how much weed they can buy with a million dollars, but are not interested in your academics as a teacher.  How are you supposed to exceed expectations then, huh?

It was very hard to give testimony to get the diagnosis last week.  I had to put a lot of things into words that had impressions and feelings, and may have been left untold.  There’s a myriad of conditions, factors affecting every moment.  

Richard Dawkins has said that the specific gravity of the doctor delivering you has more pull than the gravity of the stars on the night you were born.  There’s no way of telling which of the conditions count, what’s the signal to noise ratio.

How up do you feel, or down?  

Music engineers can see a soundboard and read the dials and knobs.  To them it’s not just clutter, or noise, or a ripped up Doctor Who set in disrepair!   

The conditions:  the sunny day, the amount of iron in my last meal, my B12  levels, noticing fun, accessing joy, harnessing gratitude, intrusive thoughts, a loop–who knows the conditions?  

And maybe I was missing something crucial.  Or prevaricating, or embellishing.  I come from a long line of lecturers and educators.  Rover says, if I were faking it,  I would have to be a “Muchauser”, a baron?  I loved that Sarah Polley/ Robin Williams film as a kid: Baron Munchausen. Is that what he meant?  I guess the point being is that  I would have to be the most supreme faker of the century if I were able to pull this off this presentation of conditions without having the actual thing.  

Last week, I did not get a chance to deal with spilling the trauma stories in a white-walled office, the potential diagnoses, and I then had a reprimand at work… and maybe not such a reprimand, my lurking unfriendly narrative of myself would call it a reprimand.  More than a reprimand: confirmation of my fears, my imposturing, confirmation that everyone hates me as much as I thought, so that I may hate myself more and get ahead of the train. 

 I guess that’s part of the conditions too, being wretched to your own inner dialogue, hating your body, wanting to press the eject button on this cartoon-proportioned reality and emotional scale, but really that’s part of it too? 

I wasn’t what I expected, although I have had it all my life.  I now have a diagnosis.  The doctor said alcohol is often running with it, body treats alcohol like a benzo; alcohol actually treats some of the conditions.  It’s gonna be a process. 

Almost fist fought the pharmacist when he said my meds were ten times what they were last month…  but we’ll try again next week.  My sponsor says they’ll figure my hormones, my thyroid. However, in her line of work, she thought it may be…

My arm is pockmarked by all the labs, I will have to deal with this my whole life, and maybe I will have more of a life.  It will swing and swing again.  I…

I have several diagnoses this week, no iron stores, pernicious anemia, ADHD, generalized anxiety, abysmal ferritin, perimenopause, tanking estrogen, stories surfacing and changing colour being refigured under the heading that it might be, or has always been… 

Lots of research to do.  I guess about it, now that it is on the books.  It is written.  Maybe I say it out loud.  Say it at this pre-formed stage.  Don’t know what it means yet.  Say it before I discover… say it before my expectations about it take over.

 I am bipolar.  

Rather, I am bipolar, too.