Sober Shepherds

Sober Shepherds Guiding Recovery, Inspiring Sobriety. A faith-based recovery community built on honesty, connection, and hope. We don’t pretend to be experts.

Sober Shepherds: Because Every Voice Matters

At Sober Shepherds®, sobriety isn’t a finish line — it’s a journey we walk together, one day at a time. We don’t hide behind numbers or titles. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and friends — ordinary people learning to live with honesty, courage, and faith. We believe in the power of honesty. We believe in the courage it takes to tell your sto

ry, and the healing that comes when someone else hears it and realizes they’re not alone. We don’t offer coaching. We don’t sell easy answers. We simply offer truth, connection, and the reminder that you don’t have to be somebody to mean something. Our community exists to reach those who feel out of place, those who’ve been told they don’t belong, those who carry shame in silence. We are not here to glorify success stories packaged for validation and tailored for recognition. We are here for the raw, the messy, the ones who wonder if they matter. Because here — you do.

01/01/2026

🕊️ The Gift of Desperation by David Weitz

Whoever would dare to define the gift of recovery as just a mere coincidence has surely never lived our misery.

As it was once explained to me, the opportunity to recover appears only when the sufferer is ready to admit complete defeat. And when that brief moment of clarity arrives, we begin to formulate a passageway into a new unknown.

The population of the world around us narrows from millions to a room filled with strangers who speak a different language. Although our heads are shattered by deception, what seems foreign to such sore ears somehow transforms our desperation into a position of consideration.

By pure magnetism, we return—again and again—trying to capture the phenomenon of what we’ve been seeking our entire lives. Unsure, we keep revisiting these rooms filled with unfamiliar faces, as optimism becomes a factor for the first time in our existence.

The elimination of isolation is what ignites the fuse to demolish the lifelong obstruction of spiritual light.

This transformation in a terrified newcomer is, in fact, what we speak of when others around us witness a miracle. As the seed of willingness germinates in the beginner, they become a new life form—one that requires unconditional compassion from those with much stronger roots.

Hope becomes the driving force between what has always been, and what could possibly be.

Understanding and kindness are offered without condition to those who continue to fall. Eventually, the handicap of never having been able to walk through one day sober begins to stand on two firm feet.

It is truly unexplainable to those who have never stood in our shoes. And so, we keep coming back—if only for the simple fact that we’ve finally found hearts that match our own.

Anyone who receives a daily pardon through the course of submitting their will can attest to some of the most horrid stories ever heard by sober ears. And if the desperate are willing to go to any and all lengths to beat the odds already stacked against them, then there should be no contest when an insane newcomer begs you to help save their life.

Still, I’ve known the names of many anonymous souls who never saw another day’s dawn.

How many of us find such liberty on a daily basis, only to return to the ruins we swore off forever?

It’s the insidiousness of this incurable disease that baffles even the minds of those with doctorates who study us. It’s sinister to watch others lurk outside our programs, writing books about a cure to try and sway us—or the greedy in Hollywood, spending millions of dollars entertaining the majority who are not us.

How quickly the world forgets about the thousands who perish each day—wishing only that they had found us.

Every morning a recovering addict opens their eyes, they are conditioned from the very beginning to give thanks to a power greater than themselves for another chance at life. We learn, through self-awareness and working with others who share this common bond, to never take for granted the twenty-four-hour reprieve from a nightmare we once couldn’t wake from.

Through this new understanding, we become attuned to the fact that this priceless gift we’ve acquired can vanish—just like that—in the course of one bad decision.

So we assess carefully how we respond to each moment that confronts us.

And we use honesty and faith to guide us into a new foundation for how we live our lives.

12/31/2025

🕊️ Love The One You’re With By David Weitz

I once heard in a meeting that the reason people suggest staying out of intimate relationships for the first year of sobriety is that most don’t dare to tell you five. Sure, once grounded as a regular meeting-goer, avoiding people, places, and things that trigger you becomes second nature. When you lose the desire to use, seeking stimulation outside of yourself can feel like a treasure hunt. However, pay close attention to the fools around you — they will teach the open-minded just how unmanageable we can become when we lend our hearts out too early. It’s a hard lesson to learn for a newcomer whose dark side continuously echoes, “I want, I need, I demand, I deserve.”

Recovery is like a jigsaw puzzle. You begin to rebuild your life by first getting sober and using meetings and a sponsor to sort through the thousands of tiny pieces scattered everywhere. Putting it all together requires patience, tolerance, serenity, and concentration. Somewhere during this process, however, you realize that the pieces of this puzzle are really just patterns of self-centered fear. Through a lengthy, painful, but spiritual evolution, the puzzle that once appeared as a thousand scattered pieces now begins to form the edges of endless possibilities.

When we first get sober, the unmanageability of learning how to be with ourselves is unbearable. When the fear and rage eventually subside, we become willing enough to write a Fourth Step. Shortly after, we engage in a Fifth Step and begin to witness — for the first time — the patterns that would continue destroying any new structure within us if we didn’t keep the focus on ourselves. What once seemed like a distant dream is fulfilled through a meaningful relationship with a Higher Power, as we understand Him. Only then are we able to continue constructing the puzzle.

After years of turning our will and our lives over to a power greater than ourselves — and somewhere between patience, service, and working with others — it becomes difficult not to acknowledge the miracles we witness. Among the thousands of tiny pieces that were once poured out in front of us, a beautiful picture of who we are today slowly and miraculously appears.

Therefore, the message to all newcomers is simply this:

Don’t love the one you think you want.

Place your trust in a power greater than yourself,

and learn to love the one you’re with.

12/30/2025

🕊️ Liquid Handcuffs

In 1978, I was a skilled machinist making precision parts for the U.S. Navy’s national security. I was trained to manufacture components for the F/A-18, the V-22 Osprey, the Seawolf submarine, nuclear triggers, and even parts for NASA satellites. I had a real career, real responsibility, and real pride in my work.

Five years in, everything changed.

One day at work, I fell and broke four discs in my back. I was put on workers’ compensation and sent to a long list of doctors. Every one of them prescribed painkillers — a lot of them — all fully covered by insurance. I took six Percocet a day for five years.

Eventually, the case was settled. I walked away with $55,000. I was also discharged from all of my doctors — and from a five-year, fully sanctioned op**te habit.

That’s when I met he**in.

I was twenty-nine.

At first, I snorted it. It wasn’t long before I was shooting it. From there, I was hooked. I didn’t drive, and I didn’t live near where I copped, so I started taking the bus down what everyone called “The Way.”

One day, I noticed a guy at the back of the bus — someone I saw often. We started talking. I asked him where he was headed. He told me he was on his way to the clinic.

“What kind of clinic?” I asked.

“A methadone clinic.”

I went home and researched it. Everything I read made it sound like methadone would save me from impending doom. Looking back now, everything that followed seemed to happen in reverse.

I started drinking methadone and, for the first week, it did help me physically. Mentally, though, nothing changed. I still had to pass the same places where I used to cop just to get to the clinic, because it was all in the same area. As I got to know people standing in line with me every morning waiting for our juice, I realized I had access to just about anything I wanted.

I had to go seven days a week. I never missed a day. And instead of getting better, I sank deeper into addiction.

I went to the clinic looking for help and found myself surrounded by addicts and a handful of therapists who seemed completely disconnected from whether I lived or died. For the next thirteen years, I went year-round without fail, putting methadone — and the lifestyle that came with it — ahead of everything, including my family.

Most of my life during that time was spent alone.

Before he**in, both my wife and I worked. After my accident, I was so heavily medicated on op**tes and other drugs that even after my settlement and physical therapy, I became unemployable. I spent most of that settlement on dope. When the money ran out, I was left to con, cheat, steal, and manipulate every single day just to get well — either before or after the clinic.

After early mornings at the clinic, I’d come home, nod out on the couch, burn holes in my clothes, and stay that way until the next morning, when I’d do it all over again.

During those years, my wife became a terrible enabler — not out of malice, but out of denial. She couldn’t accept that I was an addict, or worse, a legal hostage to methadone. My daughter was two years old when I started using. Throughout her entire childhood and well into her teenage years, all she knew was an angry, impatient father. We barely communicated. I showed her no affection. She was afraid of the monster I had become.

That was twenty-two years ago.

A neighbor who lived above me — someone I’d known for over ten years — was also a dope fiend. Over time, we became like brothers, and I still consider him one today. He had gone on methadone too, but after a year, he transitioned to another op**te blocker called Suboxone.

One day, while we were hanging out, he told me how well it was working for him. I was jealous of his freedom. I trusted him, and if it worked for him, I thought maybe it could work for me. He offered to take me to his doctor, help me get in, and even sit with me and my family through the brutal detox and transition — about three days — because methadone and Suboxone do not mix.

I was terrified of change. But after thirteen years of hell, I told myself the truth: at this point, the only other option was death.

I followed the doctor’s instructions. My neighbor, my wife, and even my daughter stood by me through those three days until I stabilized. Within two years of leaving the methadone clinic, my anger had nearly vanished. I’m still on Suboxone today, but being removed from the lifestyle of the methadone clinic changed me profoundly.

I may not fit everyone’s definition of sobriety. I don’t attend twelve-step meetings. But I live with a healthy fear of ever returning to the life I escaped. I’ve always been an isolator, and I know that about myself. Coming off methadone was the greatest thing that ever happened — not just to me, but to my family, who were beaten down by that life right alongside me.

There is a kind of freedom that comes from not having to stand in line and report to a window every morning — a freedom only another hostage who has broken free can truly understand.

My wife, who has stood by me for nearly three decades, deserves much of the credit for why I’m alive. When she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and fought for her life, I thank God I was finally present enough to fight beside her.

My daughter, now almost twenty-three, just graduated on the Dean’s List from Jefferson University Hospital and is studying arterial ultrasound. She has never used drugs or smoked ci******es. I can’t describe how proud I am that she never followed in my footsteps. I was her example of what happens when addiction takes hold: you lose everything and everyone you love — even if you see them every day.

There was a time when I prayed to die in my sleep.

Today, I close my eyes at night in peace, knowing I have nowhere I’m required to be in the morning.

12/28/2025

Self-Centered by David Weitz

If you think attending a meeting once a week in a church basement is tough, try recovering in a clubhouse — where your program doesn’t get tested weekly, but daily. When I first arrived, I couldn’t tell if I was seen as “new” because of the literal definition or because of my outlandish behavior. By the time I earned my third coin, half the room was cheering me on to say whatever was on my mind, while the other half probably wished I’d find a clubhouse on the other side of the planet.

“Principles Before Personalities” wasn’t just a tradition I saw hanging on the wall or heard repeated in meetings — it became a mantra I whispered to myself like a madman. Because when you recover in a center full of personalities, you quickly learn how self-centered you still are… even while sitting in the very place designed to help you stop being that way.

Picture this: walking into the same room with the same people — not just on Mondays, but Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays… and let’s not even talk about the weekends. At that point, all I was missing was a halfway decent bed. I might as well have brought my toothbrush and moved in. If recovery is about finding balance, then I had officially made the clubhouse the center of my universe.

Anyone who’s lived this knows exactly what I mean.

And then something happens.

Those who make it far enough in recovery eventually reach a moment where they realize it might be time to venture outside the clubhouse. That’s when the real bravery kicks in. You plan the occasion like it’s a date — not with someone else, but with yourself. Romantic, right? You clean yourself up, maybe dress a little sharper than usual, and show up early to a new meeting in a new place, pretending you’re not internally screaming.

The meeting starts, people share, coffee is poured… and suddenly it hits you.

You miss your usual clubhouse crew — even the ones you don’t like. Heck, you miss not liking them. You miss your seat. You miss the familiar chaos. You miss the strange comfort of being surrounded by people who know exactly how self-centered you can be — because they see it every day.

After that surreal experience, you go home, sleep it off, and the very next day find yourself back in your regular chair, oddly comforted by the realization that no matter where else you might go, there’s still no place like home. Sometimes growth doesn’t mean leaving the center — it means learning how to behave while you’re still in it.

One day, I’ll gather the courage to evolve beyond my little habitat. But for now, I can honestly say the good I gain from where I recover far outweighs the challenges posed by the personalities around me. It’s where I’ve learned to welcome newcomers — people looking for a safe haven, a place that stays open, where you can keep showing up until you’ve exhausted yourself into wellness.

In truth, I consider myself lucky. Most people don’t have the luxury of a place like this — the very place I’ve worked so hard to complain about. Maybe it’s just the self-centered part of me… the same part that brought me to my knees in the first place.

Then again — at least I’ve got a center where I can finally be myself.

12/22/2025

🕊️ Ode to Toxic Love

Once upon a time
is how I want to see
The way things started out
between this toxic love and me

So far from any fairy tale
and not exactly fun
Our time together wasn’t still
but always on the run

Through sixteen states across the land
with many saddened tears
All built upon imaginary fallacies and fears

And still when push came hard to shove
I was right there again
Though deep within my heart I knew
this path was a dead-end

At times I thought the moment came
to say my last goodbye
And still I heard the broken plea
beg me not to try

There comes a time in all our lives
when leaving means to win
To give up power and control
and let God’s work begin

Begin to trust
develop hope
and pray for all His might
And lean on Him
and all His strength
to hold on very tight

There are no words to say to thee
expressing how I feel
This toxic love knows deep inside
how hard my heart’s to steal

Commitment to this toxic love
is why I stand to fall
With no conviction under God
I hear no morals call

Need is still the driving force
that pulls me coming back
Forgiveness is so spiritual
that many humans lack

Trust can be a scary move
for two already scarred
By those who came before we met
who left us just as scarred

Yet still we stand
and here we are
right by each other’s side
And never do I want to live
inside a love that’s lied

Each morning brings a new sunrise
and with it comes the day
Whatever happened yesterday
will only just replay

What I choose to do today
will shape tomorrow’s pain
I have a choice
to heal my life
or stay locked in this chain

Still on the fifteenth of this day
we call them April showers
I hope and trust they’ll bring to May
a million budding flowers

So on this day I kneel before
this sickness without end
A defect buried in my soul
no act I can pretend

So toxic love of mine,
I need you now to know
I’ve been chained to you too long
and now it’s time to go

And when I fall again into
the arms that give no rest
You’re like a drug
that feeds the need
inside this fragile chest

I hope someday I’ll clearly see
this fracture and this cost
And run for good
to save my life
no matter what is lost

And leave behind this poisoned love
this dark and silent prison.

And choose my life — then walk away
and live with that decision.

12/19/2025

Attitude - Platitude = Gratitude

Here we are, right in the middle of the unstoppable holidays, already past Thanksgiving and barreling toward Christmas like a dark cloud on the horizon. This season seems to bring to the forefront of our meetings another round of endless shares about how grateful people are trying to be. Twisting many of our personalities into uncomfortable positions, we’re reminded that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Yet for many of us—still wounded from within—gratitude can feel like an impossible mission.

Surrounded by button-pushers and distant family members who travel great lengths only to unravel us, we must prepare for the challenges this time of year brings to those of us wired a little differently than the rest of the world.

From the perspective of an observer who shares this same commonality, it often seems that simply praying for gratitude doesn’t produce meaningful results. Telling others in the program how grateful you are to be clean and sober becomes a hollow, trite expression if it isn’t accompanied by action.

Gratitude isn’t something we declare—it’s something we do.

You can only truly share gratitude while in motion, being of service to others and showing it through action. That’s when gratitude stops being a platitude and becomes something lived. That shift alone can transform an “attitude of gratitude” into something real.

There’s no question that relapse rates rise during this season, with three major holidays stacked back to back. Outside our programs, the culture promotes cheer with beer, while many of us fall into self-pity watching everyone else get loaded but us. The pressure placed on our hyper-sensitive, over-exaggerated spirits challenges us to work harder at what our programs offer to those who are willing.

If fear feels close this holiday season—if the future feels heavy—take a chance and give of yourself to those less fortunate than you. Go earn your gratitude. Share those experiences in the meetings you attend. Be a living example to your recovering peers of how service has benefited others.

What comes back to you from within will empower you with the very tools we’re taught to use—not just to survive the holidays, but, most importantly, to get another day clean and sober.

12/17/2025

Anonymity, a Spiritual Principle

Back in 1994, I was newly twenty-two years old, living in Los Angeles. I’d been there less than a year, working in the entertainment industry and trying to find my footing. Most of my friends were in the same orbit — and most of us were in recovery from one addiction or another. Making meetings kept me safe in a town that could chase you away as fast as it welcomed you in.

One Friday afternoon, I heard a rumor that Eric Clapton was speaking at a meeting called AA-NA-CA in Culver City. It met on Monday nights. Because anonymity is the spiritual foundation of every twelve-step fellowship, someone had created a separate meeting where public figures could be announced without breaking tradition.

It was just a rumor.
I didn’t know if it was true.

That Monday, I bolted from Venice Beach to Culver City and arrived two hours early. When I pulled up, the place was empty. I sat in my car for a moment and thought, Maybe it was nothing.

I went inside anyway.

There were three men sitting in the front row talking. As I walked closer to ask if they’d heard the same thing I had… there he was. Sitting quietly between them.

All the blood rushed to my head. My body went numb. I couldn’t speak.

He looked straight at me — not like a rock star — but like a man lost at sea who’d just spotted a buoy.

He stood up, reached out his hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Eric.”

I wanted to say, Of course you are.
Instead I said, “Hi, I’m David. Nice to meet you.”

He asked if I wanted to step outside for some air.

We sat on the front steps of the church for about twenty minutes and talked about everything — except who he was to the rest of the world. And somewhere in that quiet space, I understood why he’d excused himself from the other men.

Because whatever followed him outside those walls didn’t belong there. And whatever brought him inside was the same thing that brought the rest of us.

In that moment, fame didn’t disappear — it just didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were two men, sitting on the same steps, trying to stay sober one more day.

Eventually, a couple hundred people arrived. I listened as he spoke — calm, melodic, honest. When the meeting ended, everyone lined up to shake his hand.

I didn’t.

I walked out, smoked a cigarette, and drove home.

I don’t know if Eric Clapton would ever remember that moment.

But I will — for as long as I live.

12/12/2025

Just a Little Patience: By David Weitz

It had been years since I had found myself seated across from another person in pursuit of what I love most — journalism. Life has a way of pulling us away from the things that give us meaning, sometimes quietly, sometimes violently. I know what it’s like to battle he**in. I also know what it’s like to lose nearly everything in the process — relationships, trust, momentum, and pieces of yourself you’re not sure you’ll ever get back.

Along the way, boundaries were drawn. Some people stepped away. Others disappeared entirely. The cost of addiction is rarely paid alone, and the weight of it lands hardest on the people who love us most. In my case, that was my mother — the one person who never walked away, even when others did. When the fight seemed over to everyone else, she laced up and stepped back into the ring for me.

That truth has stayed with me.

Throughout my life, I often heard people say that being a parent is the hardest job in the world. Then I became one. Years later, I can say with certainty that parenting isn’t a job at all — it’s an oath. A job comes with compensation, recognition, and the option to walk away. Parenthood offers none of that. It’s a lifelong contract signed internally, without instruction, applause, or escape clauses. You don’t clock in. You don’t clock out. You simply show up — again and again — no matter what.

It was with that understanding that I picked up the phone one afternoon and called Jamie Adler after nearly six years of silence. When I asked if he remembered me, he said yes without hesitation. In the same breath, he told me he believed I was calling for a reason. He asked me to purchase his mother’s new book, Sweet Child of Mine, and extended me the honor of interviewing her.

I sensed something larger at work, even if I couldn’t yet see it clearly. I reminded myself that I was not in charge — God was. I was simply the instrument.

I read Deanna Adler’s book in four days. Somewhere near the end, everything connected. This wasn’t just the story of a mother loving her rock-star son long after fame had faded. It was the same story I had lived — a mother who refused to quit on her child. The realization broke me. Not long after, I found myself on my way to New York City.

I met Deanna Adler in the lobby of the Paramount Hotel in Times Square just before 9:00 a.m. She stepped off the elevator, and I immediately felt drawn to her warmth. Her smile reminded me of my own mother’s. She mentioned she was starving and asked if I would join her for breakfast. The restaurant was empty as we settled into a quiet booth by the window. As I set my things down, Deanna began to cry.

When I asked what was wrong, she explained that everyone had been so kind to her during the trip — something she wasn’t used to. I excused myself briefly to pray. When I returned, I put my notes back into my bag. This interview wasn’t meant to follow an outline. It was meant to unfold.

What followed was not just a conversation, but a shared understanding between two people shaped by addiction from different sides of the same wound.

Deanna spoke candidly about her childhood — growing up without affection, without reassurance, without being told she was loved. She explained how that absence shaped her determination to love her own children differently. When her first marriage ended and she returned to her mother for help, the conditions placed on her were devastating. She was young, terrified, and without resources. The price of help was control — even over her children.

She spoke through tears about being forced to give up autonomy as a mother, about changing her children’s names, about living in fear and confusion. And yet, when the conversation turned to Steven’s addiction, her clarity sharpened.

“I never once thought to quit on Steven,” she said. “When your child is an addict or an alcoholic, the only thing you can do is be there when they need you.”

She described years of nagging, pleading, and pressure — and how none of it worked. Eventually, she learned that recovery cannot be forced. Presence mattered more than persuasion.

We talked about the height of Guns N’ Roses’ success, the long absences, and the quiet suffering of Steven’s brother, Jamie. We talked about enabling — how love, when mixed with fear, can unintentionally cause harm. Deanna spoke openly about taking Steven to dealers, to methadone clinics, about pretending not to see what she knew was happening.

She didn’t excuse herself. She told the truth.

When the conversation turned to hope, her voice changed.

“The best is here,” she said. “I finally have my son back.”

She explained how Steven lives by The Four Agreements:
Be impeccable with your word.
Don’t take anything personally.
Don’t make assumptions.
Always do your best.

Every day.

Today, she said, their family meets at the gym each morning. They laugh. They talk. They tease one another. The chaos has given way to connection.

When I asked her what she would say to mothers who have lost children to overdose, she was clear: it is not their fault. And to those still living in the daily battle — she offered the same advice she had learned the hard way: be there, seek help, and don’t try to survive it alone.

The epidemic of addiction continues to claim lives at an alarming rate. Families across the country find themselves navigating fear, shame, and confusion with no roadmap. While Deanna Adler may be known as the mother of a famous drummer, her story is no different from countless mothers whose children will never appear on magazine covers.

The courage required to stay present through repeated disappointment cannot be sustained in isolation. Extending a hand for help does not signal weakness — it creates the possibility of healing for both the addicted and those who love them.

It may feel overwhelming.
It may feel endless.

But sometimes, in the end, all it takes is just a little patience.

12/11/2025

🕊️ The holiday spirit that matters most is a sober one

12/08/2025

Sober Shepherds® Podcast: The Ache of Waiting

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