2025 A year of writing in presence

This morning I woke up as a newly minted college graduate for the second time. The masters degree that I’ve been working on since 2021 was conferred yesterday, December 31st. The majority of my non-work time since January of 2021 meant long days studying, thinking, writing, listening to lectures, working in groups with peers; and above all, many late nights behind the screen writing about issues related to co-occurring substance use disorders and mental health challenges.

Simultaneously while attending the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Behavioral Health program I’ve worked in addiction treatment centers, first as a Chemical Dependency Technician — “CD Tech” for short, then climbing a ladder of roles from CD Intern, Clinical Support, Float Counselor, to caseload-carrying Primary Counselor in a co-occurring intensive outpatient program (IOP). During this period of working-while-learning I earned the Minnesota version of the Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LADC) credential, and completed a mental health focused second internship as the pre-graduation requirement to set me on a path of 4000 additional hours of supervised clinical practice as a post-graduate Psychotherapist. I will take a clinical test, and eventually earn the Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) credential in about two to three years from now.

Sound like alot? Yes, it was, and it is. When I started out I had no idea how much the clinical addiction studies and mental health academic curriculum, taking classes with instructors working in the field, with peers — many of whom at an age where they could have been my kids, would fundamentally change me. Before that, a huge shift already had occurred, as I had already been pursuing long term recovery from co-occurring substance use and mental health challenges for several years. Little did I know that the simple decision back in 2017 to save my life and reclaim my health, by moving to Minnesota to get clean, would I have such an amazing transformational journey that would lead me not only to long-term recovery, but also to practicing as a co-occurring clinician working in the behavioral health field.

What started out only as a project to save myself from the ruins, through intensive treatment, therapy, community recovery, spiritual refocus, indeed a total reconstruction of myself, shifted to a passion to help others, both personally and professionally. I am grateful that in the last seven-and-a-half years I have had the opportunity to go slow, to learn a lot, and to grow from the inside out.

This radical exercise in transformation did not come without a few zigzags along the way. Like a lot of individuals who struggle with substance use disorders, I had a couple relapses. Like many who struggle with mental health challenges, I had some flare-ups in mental health symptoms following so-called “triggering” events. Through it all, the universe kept bringing me what I needed in the moment to turn lemons into lemonade, to heal the parts that I had not yet fully healed, to push me further through what I call a “reset, transform, rise” cycle of continuous growth and exponential healing, mentally and physically.

What the last few years has not allowed much time for, unfortunately, is free writing. Anyone who is a writer at heart knows the freeing sensation of constructing communication from thoughts and feelings, and just getting it out through pen and paper or keyboard and screen…sometimes both during revisions. Writers who love to write do so for the joy of writing, because of the torture of keeping it all bottled up, as to write is both parts avocation and obsession. It is also constructive mechanism and practical self-therapy for the writer.

Sure, many hours over several years were spent writing community-based 12-step program “step work,” putting pen to paper in response to prompts about my addiction, mental health, and “character defects” as my program phrases it; in effect doing the work of recovery. Some of this writing was also spiritual in focus. In graduate school that gave way to academic and clinical writing on the subject matter of the UMN CCAPS-IBH Masters degree program. Covering various theories of psychology, treatment modalities, cutting edge research, case conceptualizations, mental health diagnostic assessments, psychosocial briefs, and knowledge of the self of the therapist essays. I wrote all of them with academic vigor, often with a healthy dose of coffee or herbal tea at my side.

But the kind free writing on just a random item, written from instinct, and in a state of extreme presence — that was harder to come by in the last few years. Ironically, if one does some searching on the internet, especially via the Internet Archive, one can find examples of my previous written work, much of it written while I was under the influence of some substance, written from a perspective of someone who was struggling. Many of my friends, family, and maybe a few others might remember that I once wrote a blog called ScottsBigMouth where I opined on topics of the day, usually political. My audience may not have known the degree to which I was struggling during that time, but I do. In fact, the irony in that earlier written work and spoken word is that experiment led to a live internet based talk radio show, an assignment for The Huffington Post’s Off-The-Bus Project, and eventually to more serious news writing for various outlets. It also led to a reconditioning of my political consulting career, which for obvious reasons is no longer part of my life.

The further I got away from writing in presence, the more it bothered me that I wasn’t writing the good stuff anymore. I have known for quite a while that I really wanted to get back to some fundamental writing in presence, on a consistent basis. Substack seems to be a decent place to take this idea out for a spin, and see how it resonates. I really don’t care how it resonates, just that it is out there, like my old stuff used to be but better, from a healthy perspective, from a healthier and more grounded version of me.

So one of my personal goals this year now that I have graduated is to get back to free writing in extreme presence. The intention, simply put, is to write one composition every week over the next year, come hell or high water. I put it this way because for me, in order to make it a priority, I have to confront my own procrastination. So, the commitment is that I will write something from the heart, channeled from wherever, divinely inspired, or just off the top of my noggin’ once a week for 52 weeks, and see where that takes me. The topics might be on addiction, or mental health, or recovery, or spirituality, or the alien landing, or dog training, or whatever. This is the first composition. See you in a week. Thanks for reading. -SF